Egyptian officials announced today that the country’s Muslim Brotherhood-linked former President Mohammed Morsi will stand trial on terrorism-related charges, declaring that he and 35 other Brotherhood figures will face charges for among other things conspiring with Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps to sow instability within and beyond Egypt’s borders.

The deposed leader and thirty five co-defendants – including prominent members of his Muslim Brotherhood and former presidential advisers – will face trial for “collaborating with foreign organisations to commit terrorist acts in Egypt, revealing defence secrets to a foreign country, funding terrorists and military training to achieve the purposes of the international organisation of the Brotherhood,” a statement by the prosecutor-general’s office said on Wednesday.

The Associated Press evaluated the new charges as representing “a new level” in ongoing tussles between the Brotherhood and the army-backed interim government that replaced Morsi after he was deposed by the Egyptian military, and quoted the prosecution announcing that the trial would target “the biggest case of conspiracy in Egypt.” The coming weeks will also see Egyptians vote in a referendum on a new constitution, designed to replace the a previous document that Islamists had controversially drafted and rushed into passage during Morsi’s tenure.

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