Muhammad Morsi, Egypt’s only democratic ruler, dies in court

THE CASES against Muhammad Morsi, now in their sixth year, long ago took on the air of a Kafka novel. Every few weeks Egypt’s only democratically elected president, deposed in a coup in 2013, would appear in court to answer one charge or another. He was accused of espionage and torture, and of stealing livestock. Most people lost interest, but the wheels of Egyptian justice ground on. And then, abruptly, they stopped. On June 17th state television reported that Mr Morsi (pictured on next page) had died of a heart attack during a court session. He was 67.

Born in the Nile Delta, Mr Morsi trained as an engineer and finished his PhD in America. He returned to Egypt in 1985 and took up a university post in Sharqia governorate, where he had grown up. For the next 15 years he was an academic and a high-climbing member of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist group that was then banned but tolerated by Hosni Mubarak’s government. In 2000 he was elected to parliament, as an independent, since the Brotherhood was not allowed to field candidates. He served only one term.