Attorney General Hisham Barakat has referred deposed president Mohamed Morsi and 25 others to a criminal court for “insulting the judiciary.”
The former president is already facing three different trials for a variety of charges, including espionage and inciting violence.
The group of 25 also accused for insulting the judiciary is a varied mix of Muslim Brotherhood and Islamist leaders, political activists, journalists, television personalities and even a poet.
The Brotherhood and Islamist figures and leaders include ex-head of Egyptian Parliament Mohamed Saad El-Katatni; General Guide for the Muslim Brotherhood Mohamed Mahdi Akef; former Al-Shura Council members Gamal Gebril, Essam Sultan, Mohamed El-Beltagi, Sobhi Saleh, and Mohamed El-Omda; former Shura Council Legislative Committee deputy Taher Abdel Mohsen; Al-Gamaa Al-Islamiya member Assem Abdel Magid; Islamist lawyer Montasser El-Zayat; and Islamic preacher Wagdy Ghoneim
Political activist Alaa Abdel-Fattah has also been included with the group. The prominent leftist already faces charges of violating a contentious protest law passed at the end of last year, as well a suspended sentence of one year for allegedly torching former presidential candidate Ahmed Shafiq's electoral headquarters.
The list of other defendants accused of insulting the judiciary includes political activist Mostafa El-Naggar; head of the liberal Egypt Freedom Party Amr Hamzawy; Egyptian poet Abdel-Rahman Qaradawi; reformist judge Noha El-Zeini; Nasserist journalist Abdel-Halim Qandeel; and notorious TV host Tawfik Okasha.
