[JURIST] An Egyptian court on Sunday put ex-president Mohammed Morsi [BBC profile] on trial over accusations of spying and leaking information to Qatar. Prosecutors, as part of the country’s continued crack down on Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood [BBC backgrounder], allege that Morsi endangered national security by leaking to Qatar state secrets and documents that exposed the location of Egyptian weapons and revealed a portion of the country’s foreign and domestic policies. Egypt’s relationship with Qatar has been strained since Qatar continued to support Morsi and Islamists after the ex-president’s ouster [JURIST backgrounder] in July 2013. Since taking over after Morsi, current President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi [BBC profile] has instituted an intense national security campaign against Islamists.

Egypt has been severely cracking down on the Muslim Brotherhood and its supporters since al-Sisi’s take over. Earlier this month an Egyptian court ordered a retrial [JURIST report] of 36 Muslim Brotherhood supporters. The 36 are among 183 supporters sentenced to death in June in connection with violence following Morsi’s ousteri. In January security forces arrested [JURIST report] 516 supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood. In August the Supreme Administrative Court in Egypt dissolved [JURIST report] the Freedom and Justice Party, the political wing of the Muslim Brotherhood. In December 2013 Morsi was tried on charges of espionage and terrorism [JURIST report] along with 35 other defendants, many of whom were also former high-level officials and members of the Muslim Brotherhood.