Egypt investigates 'fabricated' recording against Morsi

Egypt's prosecutor general today ordered a probe into leaked audio tapes allegedly depicting a conversation among military and security officials, discussing how to forge trial evidence against ousted Islamist President Mohammed Morsi.
The prosecutor general accused the Muslim Brotherhood of "fabricating" the audio tapes and launched an investigation into it.
Morsi, Egypt's first freely elected president, was ousted in July last year by then army chief and now President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi after mass street protests against his rule.
A Turkey-based pro-Brotherhood channel yesterday aired an audio recording which contains a conversation among top military leaders soon after the ouster of Morsi last year.

The recording depicted voice of a man, identified by the channel as General Mamdouh Shaheen, the legal advisor to the defence minister, speaking on the phone with some security officials, including Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim.
During his conversations, Shaheen discussed possible legal justifications for keeping Morsi detained in a building that allegedly belongs to navy in Abu Qir in Alexandria.

In the recording, the man says that the espionage case will be in jeopardy unless a back-dated declaration defining the place where Morsi was first detained as a special prison is issued, Ahram online reported.
Egyptian law allows the interior minister to declare any place a special detention area, if the ministerial decision to do so is published in the official state gazette.

As the recording went viral on social networking sites, it sparked a wave of protest.
The top prosecutor warned people against fabricating conversations that could spark discord.
Thousands of pro-Morsi and Muslim Brotherhood members have been rounded up and put on trial since the army deposed the Islamist leader in mid-2013 following massive street protests against his rule.
Morsi himself is currently in prison over charges of killing peaceful protesters, espionage, escaping from prison during the January 25 Revolution in 2011 and insulting the judiciary.
He has been recently charged of spying and handing documents of national security importance to Qatari intelligence through the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera news channel.

He has not been sentenced in any case so far.