(Bloomberg) -- Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed to haul the Egyptian government before international courts over the death of his Islamist ally, ousted Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi, escalating a war of words between the regional rivals.
“We will do whatever we can to make sure Egypt is tried at international courts,” Erdogan said in a speech on Wednesday in Istanbul. “Mursi unfortunately writhed on the ground for 20 minutes at the courthouse and authorities didn’t intervene. Mursi was killed.”
Mursi, who had been held in prison since his 2013 overthrow, collapsed and died this week while testifying in court. Rights groups have suggested that Egypt’s first democratically elected civilian president didn’t receive adequate medical care while in prison.
Mursi was removed in a popularly backed military takeover led by Egypt’s current president, Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi, a year after his election and spent the past years battling a slew of charges.
Earlier Wednesday, Egypt lashed out at Turkey and the United Nations for questioning the circumstances leading to his death.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Ahmed Hafez said calls for an impartial investigation by Rupert Colville, spokesman for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, were a “deliberate attempt to politicize a natural death.”
And Hafez directed a veiled barb at Ankara after Erdogan earlier questioned whether the ousted Egyptian leader had died a natural death.
“Such officials proclaim their respect for democracy and human rights, while their actions and practices indicate that they solely seek to remain in power through all possible means, which has turned them into tyrannical dictatorships,” Hafez said, without mentioning Erdogan or Turkey by name.
The two countries sometimes find themselves on different sides of regional conflicts between Islamists and their opponents.
©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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