Defense team gets permission to meet Egypt ousted president in prison

"The four-day permission starts from today," defense member Hasan Saleh told Anadolu Agency.

The permission allows five defense team members, including former presidential candidate Mohamed Selim Al-Awa, to visit the ousted president.

Saleh expected that the defense team will meet Morsi on Sunday or Monday.

Morsi was flown to Alexandria's Borg al-Arab Prison Hospital last week after appearing in court with seven other defendants to answer charges that he had incited the murder of demonstrators last year.

The court session was Morsi's first public appearance since his ouster more than four months ago. Since then, he has been held at an undisclosed location by Egypt's military-backed authorities.

Trial proceedings were postponed by almost two months – they are now slated to recommence on January 8 – after defense lawyers requested more time to examine documentation related to the case.

Morsi, for his part, has refused to recognize the trial's legitimacy and has refused formal legal representation.

The ousted leader told the presiding judge that he still represented "Egypt's legitimate president."

In leaked letters broadcast by Al-Jazeera Mubasher Misr, an affiliate of the Qatar-based broadcaster on Friday, Morsi's co-defendants said that they were brought to the courthouse at 3:00am local time, seven hours before the trial.

They also alleged that the court room was packed with policemen in plain clothes and that they were prevented from meeting their lawyers ahead of the trial.

The defendants also revealed that families of Muslim Brotherhood supporters killed in the violence outside the presidential palace were prevented from attending the court session.

One defendant wrote in a leaked message that they were banned from speaking during the trial proceedings and that the speaker was taken away from them.

According to the leaked letters, no one, except the military intelligence, was allowed to snap the trial proceedings.