Morsi says he is still Egypt's 'president'

Egypt's ousted president Mohamed Morsi on Saturday insisted that he was still his country's legitimate president as he stood trial on charges of breaking jail upon the uprising that toppled longstanding president Hosni Mubarak in 2011, a judicial source said.

The source added that Morsi said that he did not recognize the court that was trying him and 130 other people on charges of breaking his jail cell during the January 25 popular uprising in 2011.

"I am still the president of this country," Morsi was quoted by the judicial source as saying from inside a courtroom cage on Saturday.

"This whole trial violates the constitution," he added, challenging the court's jurisdiction.

Morsi's lawyer had earlier challenged the jurisdiction of the court, saying that this court did not have the legal right to try his client because he was "still Egypt's legitimate president."

"To the Egyptian people I say, the coup will come to an end," Morsi reportedly said during Saturday's trial that was adjourned until October 29.

Before declaring the adjournment of the trial, judges quizzed Egypt's former military police commander Gen. Hamdi Badin on the information he had about the events that preceded and followed the jailbreak.

Badin said he did not have certain information about border infiltrations during the revolution, which started on January 25, 2011 and officially came to an end on February 11 in the same year after Mubarak stepped down and passed his powers onto the army council, which ran Egypt before Morsi took over in June 2012.

Badin, however, added that he received notices that some foreigners had infiltrated the border, noting that these foreigners did not come from the Gaza Strip.

Prosecutors have accused the Palestinian faction Hamas of sending some of its elements through secret tunnels between Gaza and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula to help Morsi, Brotherhood leaders and some Hamas members break their jail cells during the 2011 uprising.

Morsi, Egypt's first democratically elected leader, was ousted by the military in July of last year – after only one year in office – following protests against his presidency.

He currently faces four separate trials for multiple criminal charges, including espionage, jailbreak and "offending the judiciary."

Morsi, along with his co-defendants, insists that the charges against him are politically driven.

By Magdi Mohamed