CAIRO: Egypt’s first democratically elected president Mohamed Morsi was buried on Tuesday, as the UN backed calls for an independent investigation into the causes of his death after he collapsed in a Cairo courtroom.

The Islamist leader, who was overthrown in 2013 after a year of divisive rule and later charged with espionage, was buried at a cemetery in eastern Cairo’s Medinat Nasr, one of his lawyers said.

Abdel Moneim Abdel Maksoud said family members had washed Morsi’s body and prayed the last rites early Tuesday morning at the Leeman Tora Hospital.

That lies near the prison where Egypt’s first civilian president, a prominent Muslim Brotherhood member, had been held for six years in solitary confinement and deteriorating health.

The prosecutor general’s office said that only around 10 family members and close Morsi confidants were present at the funeral, including himself.

A reporter saw a handful of mourners entering the cemetery complex, accompanied by police officers, but journalists were prevented from entering the site.

The graveyard is in the same suburb as the largest massacre in Egypt’s modern history, the August 2013 crackdown on Islamist sit-ins at two Cairo squares, weeks after Morsi’s ouster by the military.

Published in Dawn, June 19th, 2019