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European Union Official Says Ousted Egyptian Leader is Doing ‘Well’ Morsi’s Visitors Leave a Mystery on Where He Is
(about 11 hours later)
CAIRO — The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, said on Tuesday that Mohamed Morsi was doing well and that they had discussed the situation in Egypt during their talks on Monday, which were the first time Mr. Morsi, the former president, had been allowed to meet with an international diplomat since the military took him into custody almost a month ago. CAIRO — Mohamed Morsi, deposed as president by the Egyptian military on July 3, is in good health, a trickle of visitors allowed access to him and his aides in recent days has revealed. Where he is, however, remains a mystery that has enraged his family and supporters, and aggravated Egypt’s crisis.
At a news conference on Tuesday, Ms. Ashton said that visiting Mr. Morsi had been a condition for her trip to Egypt, and that Egyptian officials “freely offered” her the opportunity. The most recent person to visit him, Catherine Ashton, the European Union’s top foreign policy official, was not blindfolded on Monday when she was taken to him, aides said. But she was flown by helicopter in the dark of night on the condition that she not reveal anything about Mr. Morsi’s whereabouts.
“He’s well,” Ms. Ashton said, adding that she spoke with Mr. Morsi for two hours. “We had a friendly and open and very frank discussion. He has access to information in terms of TV, newspapers, so we were able to talk about the situation, and we were able to talk about the need to move forward.” A previous group of visitors, Egyptian human rights activists, described having to hand over their cellphones on Friday before boarding a helicopter that circled for 15 minutes in what appeared to be an effort to disorient them.
Ms. Ashton said she did not know where he was being held and said that she did not want to characterize their conversation any further, “because in the circumstances, he cannot correct me if I do it wrongly.” “I think it might be a military camp outside Cairo or on the outskirts of Cairo, especially because when we landed, a car that belongs to the armed forces took us and wandered around the area for 10 minutes,” one of the activists, Nasser Amin, told Al Masry Al Youm, an Egyptian newspaper.
Mr. Morsi has not been seen in public since July 3, when Egypt’s military removed him from power, taking him and several of his aides into custody and holding them without charge. Members of his family said they had not been allowed to communicate with him. For weeks, the military resisted calls, including from Western allies and the United Nations, to release Mr. Morsi as a good-will gesture to his Islamist supporters, who have held continuous sit-ins demanding that he be restored to the presidency. The military insists that its extreme caution comes from concern for Mr. Morsi’s safety, though it is probably more worried that his supporters would seize even the vaguest information on his location to create a new focus for their rallies — particularly after two bloody crackdowns on their protests.
Mr. Morsi’s supporters have called for more mass rallies on Tuesday. When Mr. Morsi’s supporters thought that he was being held in the Republican Guard House in Cairo, they turned out there en masse. Security forces opened fire on them, killing more than 60 people in one of two mass killings by the security services in the past month.
Last week, prosecutors ordered Mr. Morsi’s formal detention for 15 days pending an investigation into charges related to his escape from prison during the 2011 uprising against former President Hosni Mubarak. The charges were part of an intensifying crackdown against Mr. Morsi’s movement, the Muslim Brotherhood, and other Islamist groups that has resulted in arrest warrants or detention for dozens of Islamist leaders. Last week, prosecutors ordered Mr. Morsi’s formal detention for 15 days pending an investigation into charges related to his escape from prison during the 2011 uprising against President Hosni Mubarak. The charges were part of an intensifying crackdown against the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist groups that has resulted in arrest warrants or detention of Islamist leaders.
On Monday, the police arrested Aboul-Ela Maadi and Essam Sultan, senior figures in the Islamist al Wasat, or the Center Party, according to state news media. Prosecutors issued warrants for their arrests last week, accusing the men of inciting violence and “insulting the judiciary,” a crime under Egyptian law. But Mr. Morsi remains in legal and physical limbo. The military has so far refused to treat him like a criminal suspect and put him in prison, where he might receive visitors and legal advice. And his detention has emerged as a major obstacle to resolving the crisis, according to mediators. Brotherhood leaders and foreign diplomats have repeatedly pressed for Mr. Morsi’s release as a good-will gesture that might move negotiations forward.
Mr. Morsi’s removal has plunged Egypt into its worst political crisis since the revolution that felled his autocratic predecessor, Mr. Mubarak, in February 2011. The Muslim Brotherhood has demanded the reinstatement of Mr. Morsi, even as the military has laid the ground work for an intensifying crackdown on the group. Besides meeting with Mr. Morsi, Ms. Ashton spoke with the interim president, Adli Mansour; his vice president, Mohamed ElBaradei; and the defense minister, Gen. Abdul-Fattah el-Sisi, as well as those Muslim Brotherhood leaders who have not been arrested. The meetings came as Egypt’s new leaders widened their crackdown on the Islamists. The Ministry of Justice announced Tuesday that it was investigating judges and prosecutors suspected of ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, as part of an intensifying effort to remove the remnants of Mr. Morsi’s leadership.
Ms. Ashton arrived on Sunday, the day after police officers and armed civilians killed at least 80 of Mr. Morsi’s supporters in the worst mass killing by Egypt’s security services in recent memory. It was the second time in three weeks that the authorities had fired on Islamist protesters. On July 8, more than 60 people were killed outside the Republican Guard House in Cairo, where Mr. Morsi’s supporters had been demonstrating in the belief that the former president was being held inside. The interest in Ms. Ashton’s visit, which yielded no immediate breakthroughs except the news about Mr. Morsi, reflected the depth of Egypt’s predicament, with the Brotherhood and the military both firmly refusing to yield.
Since her arrival, Ms. Ashton has met with the interim president, Adli Mansour, his vice president, Mohamed ElBaradei, and the defense minister, Gen. Abdul-Fattah el-Sisi, as well as Muslim Brotherhood leaders who have not been arrested. Mr. Morsi’s supporters cautiously welcomed a bit of news about the ousted leader’s well-being, but said the choice of visitors deepened their conviction that the military rulers were more concerned with stanching criticism overseas than reconciling with the Islamists.
In a statement, Ms. Ashton said she was urging Egypt’s interim leaders to make good on their pledge for a cohesive, civilian-led government that included all political factions, including the Brotherhood and its Islamist allies. “This transitional process must lead — as soon as possible — to a constitutional regime, the holding of free transparent elections and the forming of a cabinet with a civilian leadership,” Ms. Ashton said. “With all due respect to Ms. Ashton, it’s a shame that the first person to see him is a foreigner,” said Amr Darrag, a senior leader in the Brotherhood’s political wing, the Freedom and Justice Party. “All these Egyptians are not allowed to see him, or even talk to him on the phone. They care about their international image, much more than their own people.”
In Washington, a State Department spokeswoman, Jen Psaki, told reporters that Secretary of State John Kerry had conferred with Ms. Ashton by telephone. “We fully support and appreciate her efforts to calm tensions, prevent further violence, bridge political divides and help lay the basis for a peaceful, inclusive process,” she said. Another Brotherhood leader said the group had received word that another delegation would be allowed to visit him soon, but it was also made up of foreigners.
There were no immediate details on the outcome of Ms. Ashton’s meetings. Mr. ElBaradei told Ms. Ashton that Egypt’s post-Morsi leadership was doing “all that it could in order to reach a peaceful exit to the current crisis,” according to an account of their meeting on Ahram Online. For now, though, Mr. Morsi remains incommunicado, cut off from both family members and supporters. Ms. Ashton said he was informed of the developments occurring in Egypt through access to television and newspapers. But Mr. Amin said they were both state television channels, which have embraced the military’s perspective since Mr. Morsi’s ouster, leaving him with a skewed version of the events.
The Muslim Brotherhood said on its Web site that Ms. Ashton was meeting with at least four members of the Anti-Coup National Alliance, a protest coordination group formed by the Brotherhood and its supporters, at a hotel in Egypt’s Giza district, where the Islamists have been staging a mass sit-in since Mr. Morsi’s ouster. The Brotherhood said the delegation would be “embarking from the platform of constitutional legitimacy, aiming to end the military coup.” There are indications that even Mr. Morsi is uncertain where he is being held. When the human rights activists reached one of the aides staying with him — Mr. Morsi remained in the next room — the aide is said to have asked, “So where are we?”
Tensions remained high during Ms. Ashton’s visit, as the Brotherhood and its allies held a number of protest marches Monday — including one to a military location — in defiance of the military’s warnings. Egyptian security officials have issued threats to forcefully dismantle the main Islamist protest sit-in at an intersection in northeast Cairo where tens of thousands of supporters have been living for weeks. Military officials who spoke to The Associated Press last week said Mr. Morsi had been moved at least three times since his detention, under heavy guard in armored vehicles.

Kareem Fahim reported from Cairo, and Rick Gladstone from New York. Mayy El Sheikh and Robert F. Worth contributed reporting from Cairo.

Ms. Ashton, too, said she was not certain where Mr. Morsi was being held.
  “I saw where he was — I don’t know where he is — but I saw the facilities he has,” Ms. Ashton said after a two-hour visit with Mr. Morsi that involved helicopter and car trips to an undisclosed location.
“He’s well,” she said, without going into specifics.
Ms. Ashton had made her visit to Egypt conditional on seeing Mr. Morsi face to face, which she was not allowed to do on her last visit earlier this month, a senior European Union official said Tuesday night. The military’s condition was that she not reveal Mr. Morsi’s location, but because she was shuttled there late at night by helicopter, she did not in fact know where the meeting took place, the official said.
Her visit with Mr. Morsi was agreed upon with her own security personnel, who negotiated the trip with the Egyptian interim authority and the military, the official said. She made the trip with her director for the Middle East, Christian Berger, an Austrian who was appointed to the job in 2011 after running the European Union’s office in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
“She would not allow herself to just be whisked off, and neither would our security people,” the official said.

Steven Erlanger contributed reporting from London.