Egypt's Morsi jailbreak trial postponed to rule on judges

An Egyptian court today postponed the jailbreak trial of deposed Islamist president Mohammed Morsi after defence lawyers requested that the judges withdraw from the case.
The trial, one of three cases against Morsi, is part of a relentless government crackdown targeting him and his Muslim Brotherhood movement since his ouster by the army in July.
"The court decided to stop looking into the case until a decision is taken on the recuse request" filed by defence lawyers, presiding judge Shaaban el-Shamy said before ending today's session.
An appeal court is to look into the request on March 1 and decide whether to appoint a new panel of judges, a defence lawyer, Mohammed Abou Leila, told AFP.

Morsi and 130 other defendants including Palestinian and Lebanese militants are charged with organising jailbreaks and attacking police stations during the 2011 revolt against strongman Hosni Mubarak.
At today's hearing, lawyers of some of the defendants requested that a new panel of judges look into the case, complaining over a soundproof glass cage in which the accused are held during the court sessions.

The soundproof dock is designed to stop Morsi and the other defendants from interrupting the proceedings with outbursts, as they have done in several hearings.
Khaled Badawi, another defence lawyer, said the request was also motivated by the alleged taping of private conversations between the defendants and their lawyers, after an Egyptian newspaper leaked a discussion between Morsi and lawyer Selim al-Awa.

Badawi said a similar request was also made at Morsi's espionage trial, in which he is accused of leaking state secrets to Iran's Revolutionary Guards.
Colleague Ali Kamal said it was "rare for a recuse request to be accepted" by the Egyptian judiciary.
Since his ouster, Morsi and the Brotherhood have been retroactively accused of committing much of the violence during the anti-Mubarak uprising.
Nearly 850 people died during the 18-day uprising that toppled Mubarak, most of them on January 28, 2011, when protesters battled the then-despised police.
Many of those who died were killed outside police stations when protesters attacked what they saw as symbols of Mubarak's autocratic rule.

Prosecutors allege that the attacks on police stations and the jailbreaks, in which Morsi and other political prisoners escaped, were a Brotherhood-led conspiracy to sow chaos in Egypt.