The Cairo Criminal Court is scheduled to issue its verdict against ousted Islamist President Mohamed Mursi and 35 others accused of espionage on May 16, it announced on Saturday.
Mursi and the other defendants are charged with espionage, disclosing state secrets to foreign countries, funding terrorism, conducting military training to serve an international branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, and "endangering the independence, unity and safety of the state."
Other defendants in the trial include Muslim Brotherhood Supreme Guide Mohamed Badie, his deputies Khairat al-Shater and Mahmoud Ezzat, as well as other group leaders and former presidential advisers. Sixteen defendants are being tried in absentia.
The former president, ousted since July 2013, is implicated in a group of other court cases. He is being tried for inciting the killing of protesters outside the presidential palace during his tenure in December 2012, insulting the judiciary, and escaping from the Wadi al-Natroun Prison during the 18-day January 25 uprising in 2011.
Mursi, two of his aides and eight others were referred to trial on September 7, 2014 over new espionage charges which involve leaking classified national intelligence to the Qatari intelligence.
