The deposed Egyptian leader was due in court yesterday on charges of killing protesters in 2012.

The trial of Egypt's ousted President Mohamed Mursi was adjourned yesterday, January 8, 2014, after officials said bad weather prevented an helicopter from flying him from detention in Alexandria to the trial venue at National Police Academy in the capital, Cairo, the BBC said.

Other defendants earlier arrived at the police compound by helicopter, the State news agency, Mena, said. The court session began at about 11:15 local time, but was immediately adjourned until February 1, 2014, a decision that the presiding judge attributed to weather conditions. Ironically, reports said the sun was shining outside the court and the forecast for the Mediterranean city of Alexandria was not much different.

The deputy leader of Mursi’s Freedom and Justice Party, Essam al-Erian, shouted from the cage in which the defendants were being held that he did not recognise the trial's legitimacy and that they were brought to court against their will. He predicted that Mohamed Mursi would refuse to attend the trial as his position was the same. Agency reports said tear gas and live fire were used to disperse pro-Moslem Brotherhood demonstrators in the Nasr City area of Cairo.

Mursi and 14 other Moslem Brotherhood figures are accused of inciting the killing of protesters outside the Presidential Palace in 2012. Egypt’s first ever democratically-elected leader was removed by the army last July after one year in power. It followed demonstrations against his rule. Mohamed Mursi is also accused of conspiring with foreign organisations to commit terrorist acts and murdering prison officers in a jailbreak during the 2011 uprising against former President Hosni Mubarak.