CAIRO
Egypt's ousted President Mohamed Morsi on Saturday asked for a meeting with his lawyer to discuss charges against him of spying for Qatar.
Morsi appeared in court on Saturday to answer charges of breaking out of jail during a 2011 uprising that ousted autocratic President Hosni Mubarak.
During Saturday's trial session, Morsi asked to meet his lawyer to discuss the spying case, which will be examined by court on Sunday.
Morsi is expected to argue during Sunday's meeting that the court has no jurisdiction to try him in the case.
Morsi said on Saturday that he did not know anything about the case in which he would be tried on Sunday.
"This is why I need to sit with my lawyers," he told judges.
Egyptian authorities accuse Morsi and ten other defendants of leaking confidential documents concerning Egyptian national security to the Qatari intelligence apparatus and the Qatari-owned Al Jazeera news network with the aim of "harming Egypt's military and diplomatic status and national interests."
The documents allegedly included classified information on Egypt's army, military dispositions and armaments, as well as additional information on the country's domestic and foreign policies.
Among the defendants are the former head of Morsi's office, Ahmed Abdel-Ati, and secretary Ameen al-Serafi, along with figures from the Al Jazeera news network and the Muslim Brotherhood's Misr 25 satellite channel.
Prosecutors allege that al-Serafi had delivered the classified documents to his daughter, Karima, who passed them along to five other defendants in the case, including Alaa Sablan, a Jordanian reporter who works for Al Jazeera.
Morsi, Egypt's first democratically elected leader, was ousted by the military in July 2013 – after only one year in office – following protests against his presidency.
He currently faces four separate trials on multiple criminal charges, including espionage, jailbreak and "offending the judiciary."
Morsi, like his co-defendants, insists the charges against him are politically motivated.
