Turkey opposition leader urges Egypt not to execute Morsi

ANKARA

Turkish main opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu has urged Egyptian leaders not to execute Egypt’s first democratically elected President Mohamed Morsi.

The Republican People’s Party (CHP) said in a statement on Friday that the party’s leader Kilicdaroglu denounced “political execution decisions”.

Kilicdaroglu told Egypt-based Middle East News Agency that meddling with internal affairs of another country was a bad idea and was not his intention to do so, while emphasizing the “deep trauma” an execution might engender in Egyptian society.

“Of course politicians may make mistakes, may violate laws,” he said, adding that in the “framework of democratic process and the rule of law, they may be punished or forgiven.

“But irreversible processes like execution create deep trauma in the community.”

For that, Kilicdaroglu invited Egyptian authorities and people to look back at Turkish history.

The perpetrators of Turkey’s 1960 military coup executed Prime Minister Adnan Menderes and his friends, with similar bloodshed occurring after the 1971 coup and 1980 coup.

And, he said, Turkey was trying to cleanse itself from this trauma by naming places and facilities after those killed during coups d’etat.

On May 16, Morsi and more than 100 Muslim Brotherhood supporters were sentenced to death by a Cairo court in connection with a mass jail break in 2011.

The court referred 122 out 166 defendants, including Morsi to the grand mufti to consider death sentences against them over charges of jailbreak and espionage.

Last month, Morsi -- who became Egypt’s first democratically elected president in 2012 after the ousting of President Hosni Mubarak -- and 12 co-defendants were sentenced to 20 years in prison for organizing attacks on protesters in 2012.

Morsi was ousted in July 2013 by a coup that was led by incumbent Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi who then acted as defense minister to end Morsi’s rule and suspend the constitution.