A son of Egypt's first democratically elected president, Mohammed Morsi, was released on bail Wednesday hours after he was arrested for belonging to a banned group and spreading "fake news," a judicial source said.
Abdullah Morsi, the youngest son of the former president, was arrested at dawn. He was freed by the prosecutor "on bail of 5,000 pounds ($6,616)," the source said, as reported by Agence France-Presse (AFP). In interview with The Associated Press news agency published earlier this month, he complained that his family has only been allowed to visit his father three times in five years. He also said in the interview that prison authorities had failed to provide the former president with sufficient medical care for diabetes and high blood pressure.
President Abdel-Fattah El-Sissi came to power in 2013 on the back of a bloody military coup against Mohammed Morsi, who became Egypt's first-ever freely-elected leader in a presidential poll held one year earlier.
Morsi, along with hundreds of supporters and members of his banned Muslim Brotherhood group, has remained behind bars since the 2013 coup. Rights groups frequently accuse Egypt of attempting to silence critics by charging them with belonging to banned groups or disseminating "fake news." Compiled from wires
