Supporters of Muslim Brotherhood and ousted Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi shouting slogans against the military and the Interior Ministry during a protest around Ain Shams square in Cairo over the weekend. Photo: Reuters

Lawyers for deposed Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi withdrew in protest after he appeared in court yesterday on charges of conspiring with foreign groups to commit terrorist acts in Egypt.

Morsi’s legal team protested they could not hear their client speak from inside a soundproof glass cage. The judge controls the microphone that allows defendants to be heard.

The judge ordered a lawyer’s syndicate to assign 10 lawyers to defend Morsi at the trial’s next hearing on February 23.

“My professional conscience will not permit me to continue... in these void proceedings,” lawyer Mohamed Salim al-Awa said.

In what they call “the biggest case of conspiracy in the history of Egypt”, prosecutors say Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood hatched a “terrorist plan” in 2005 involving the Palestinian Hamas group as well as Shi’ite Iran and its Lebanese ally Hizbollah.

Are you afraid because you have no public support?

Hamas has dismissed the charges as “fabrications and lies”.

The Brotherhood also rejects the allegations, saying it is a peaceful organisation with no links to any violent groups. It accuses the army of staging a coup and reviving a dictatorship, an allegation the military denies.

Islamic militant groups have stepped up bombing and shooting attacks on security forces since Morsi’s fall, killing hundreds.

The Brotherhood propelled Morsi to election victory in 2012 but was driven underground after the army ousted the Islamist leader in July after mass protests against his rule.

The state, which has declared the Brotherhood a terrorist group, has killed about 1,000 of its members on the streets and jailed thousands, including its top leaders.

Egypt’s Western allies have exerted little pressure on Cairo to end what critics say are widespread human rights violations.

Morsi is on trial in three cases and charged in two others. “What are you so afraid of? Are you afraid because you have no public support?” Morsi asked the panel of judges.

The prosecution has said the Brotherhood’s plan was to send “elements” to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip for military training by Hizbollah and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. Upon their return to Egypt, they would join forces with militant groups in the Sinai Peninsula, the Egyptian territory that borders Israel to the east, it has alleged.

After the 2011 uprising that ousted President Hosni Mubarak, the Brotherhood exploited the chaos to carry out attacks on security forces in North Sinai and elsewhere, it said.