Egypt accuses UN to try to ' politicize ' death of former President

The spokesman of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ahmed Hafez, said that he condemned the appeal of the spokesman of the United Nations High Commissioner for human rights to open an independent investigation into the death of Mohamed Morsi during a court hearing on Monday.

Cairo:

Egypt today accused the United Nations of seeking to "politicize" the death of the country's first democratically elected president, Mohamed Morsi, by calling for an "independent investigation".

The spokesman of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ahmed Hafez, said that he had condemned "with the utmost firmness" the appeal made by the spokesman of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Rupert Colville, for an independent investigation to be conducted on Morsi's death at a hearing on Monday.

Hafez said it was a "deliberate attempt to politicize a case of natural death".

Colville called Tuesday for an investigation to determine whether the conditions Morsi faced during his six years in detention had contributed to his death.

"Any sudden death in custody must be followed by a prompt, impartial, thorough and transparent investigation by an independent body to clarify the cause of death," he said.

"Concerns have been expressed about Mr. Morsi's conditions of detention, including access to adequate medical care, as well as adequate access to his lawyers and family," added Mr. Colville.

He added that the investigation should "cover all aspects of the treatment of Mr. Morsi by the authorities in order to determine whether the conditions of his detention had an impact on his death".

Morsi was overthrown by the then army chief, current President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, in 2013 after a single year of division in power. He was subsequently charged with various offences, including espionage.

Since his ouster, the authorities have launched a continuous crackdown on dissent of all kinds, in which thousands of Brotherhood sympathizers have been imprisoned and hundreds sentenced to death.