Egypt Charges Ex-President Mohammed Morsi With Leaking Secrets To Qatar, Al Jazeera

Egyptian prosecutors charged former President Mohammed Morsi Saturday with sharing state secrets with Qatar and the Al Jazeera TV network that endangered national security. Several of the Muslim Brotherhood-backed leader’s former aides were also accused of leaking state documents, according to Reuters.

The prosecutor told Agence-France Press that the charge states Morsi "handed over to Qatari intelligence documents linked to national security ... in exchange for $1m (£610,000).”

The documents “exposed humiliating facts and the extent of the largest conspiracy and treason carried out by the terrorist Brotherhood organization against the nation through a network of spies,” according to a statement from the prosecutor reported by Reuters.

Morsi has already been charged with several other crimes, including espionage.

Qatar has long been a backer of the Muslim Brotherhood and consequently relations between the two countries have been shaky since the Egyptian military leader Abdel Fattah al-Sisi (now president) ousted Morsi in July 2013.

The new government has since been cracking down on the Muslim Brotherhood and has named it a terrorist organization.

Since last summer’s coup, activists said that at least 1,400 people have been killed in Egypt and around 16,000 more detained or imprisoned. Hundreds of those detained have been sentenced to death.