Mohamed Morsi (8 August 1951-17 June 2019) was the President of Egypt from 30 June 2012 to 3 July 2013, succeeding Hosni Mubarak and preceding Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. Morsi was the first democratically-elected head of state in Egyptian history, but a year later, Morsi was overthrown by General el-Sisi in a coup in response to his dictatorship over the country and his implementation of Islamism. Morsi was sentenced to death on 16 June 2015 for a prison break, and he died during a court hearing in 2019.
Biography[]
Mohamed Morsi was born on 8 August 1951 in el-Adwah, Sharqia Governorate, Kingdom of Egypt (present-day el-Adwah, Egypt) to a Sunni Muslim family. He was educated in public schools and universities in Egypt, and was later given a scholarship by the government to pursue a doctorate of philosophy in the United States. Morsi studied at the University of Southern California, and when he returned to Egypt, he became a member of the People's Assembly of Egypt from 2000 to 2005 and was also a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood. After the 2011 Egyptian Revolution that overthrew President Hosni Mubarak, Morsi became the Chairman of the Freedom and Justice Party, an Islamist political party that represented the Muslim Brotherhood in politics. On 30 June 2012 he was elected President of Egypt with 51.7% of the vote, defeating former Prime Minister Ahmed Shafik.
As the first democratically-elected Egyptian head of state, Morsi granted himself unlimited powers and the power to legislate without judicial review. He claimed that this was to protect the country from remnants of the old regime, but in November he issued a constitutional declaration that was referred to as an Islamist coup. During his rule there was widespread prosecution of journalists and murders of peaceful demonstrators, and on 30 June 2013 there were protests demanding his resignation. On 3 July 2013 he was unseated by Minister of Defense Abdul Fattah el-Sisi, opposition leader Mohamed el-Baradei, Grand Imam of al-Azhar Ahmed el-Tayeb, and Pope Tawadros II of Alexandria. The new council suspended the Constitution, established a new administration headed by the Chief Justice, and initiated a brutal crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood.
Morsi faced charges due to his brief dictatorial rule over Egypt. On 21 April 2015 he was sentenced to twenty years in prison but acquitted of murder, although on 16 May 2015 he was sentenced to death for the Wadi el-Natrun prison break in 2011. On 16 June 2015 Morsi's death sentence for conspiring with foreign groups was commuted to life imprisonment, although the death sentence for the prison break was upheld. On the same day, Muslim Brotherhood leader Khairat el-Shater was sentenced to death with two others. On 17 June 2019, he collapsed during a court hearing on espionage and died of a heart attack at the age of 67.