The courtroom death of Egypt’s democratically elected former president Mohammed Morsi casts a dark shadow over the military regime in Cairo, which is a vital Western ally in the Middle East. Mr Morsi, 67, was a deeply flawed leader who paid the price for his close links to the extremist Muslim Brotherhood and its Hamas terrorist offshoot. But his success in winning 51.7 per cent of the vote in the June 2012 election, which followed the uprisings that led to the removal of Hosni Mubarak’s harsh regime, symbolised many of the aspirations of the 2011 Arab Spring.
Read the editorial in The Australian.