Mohammed Morsi faces Egypt terrorism charges

Egypt's ousted President Mohammed Morsi is to stand trial on charges including conspiring with foreign organisations to commit terrorist acts, the BBC reported. 

Prosecutors said Mr Morsi had formed an alliance with the Palestinian militant group Hamas and Lebanon's Hezbollah.

Thirty-four others, including former aides and leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood, have also been charged.

Since being deposed by the military in July, Mr Morsi has already gone on trial for inciting murder and violence.

He is one of thousands of Brotherhood members to have been detained in a crackdown portrayed by officials as a struggle against terrorism.

Hundreds of people have also been killed in clashes with security forces.

The official Mena news agency reported that Mr Morsi and the other defendants, including the Brotherhood's general guide Mohammed Badie and his two deputies, were charged with revealing state secrets to a foreign country, sponsoring terrorism, and carrying out military training and other acts that undermined Egypt's stability and independence.

The public prosecutor was quoted by the Reuters news agency as alleging in a statement that the Brotherhood had prepared a "terrorist plan" that included an alliance with Hamas, the Islamist group that governs Gaza, and Hezbollah, a powerful Shia Islamist movement.

Several of the defendants, including Mr Morsi's former chief of staff Essam Haddad, were also reportedly accused of giving state secrets to Iran's Revolutionary Guards.

The prosecutors also implicated the Brotherhood in the surge in attacks on the security forces since Mr Morsi's overthrow, most of which have taken place in the Sinai peninsula and been claimed by jihadist militants.

The violence was intended to "bring back the deposed president and to bring Egypt back into the Muslim Brotherhood's grip", they claimed.