Recordings Suggest Emirates and Egyptian Military Pushed Ousting of Morsi - NYTimes.com
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/02/world/middleeast/recordings-suggest-emirates-and-egyptian-military-pushed-ousting-of-morsi.h
Audio recordings of senior Egyptian officials that were leaked Sunday suggest that when Mohamed Morsi was president, the United Arab Emirates gave the Egyptian Defense Ministry money for a protest campaign against him.
The recordings, which could not be authenticated, appear to indicate that both the Egyptian military and its backers in the Emirates played a much more active role in fomenting the protests against Mr. Morsi in June 2013 than either party has acknowledged.
President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who was then the defense minister, said when he led the ouster of Mr. Morsi that he was acting in response to the protests.
The audio recordings are the latest in a long series that appear to capture the private meetings and phone calls of senior defense officials. All have been released through Islamist news outlets that oppose President Sisi.
Egyptian officials have said that the recordings are fabrications, but many Egyptian commentators treat them as credible, giving them weight in public opinion.
“Everything, absolutely everything is under surveillance,” Mohamed Hassanein Heikal, a historian and journalist who is close to senior defense officials, said in a television interview when asked about previous leaked recordings. Mr. Heikal said that amid all the turmoil in Egypt, it would not be surprising that such recordings would have been made.
“Who records during the time of chaos?” he said. “Everyone records during the time of chaos.”
