World Bulletin/News Desk

An Egyptian court on Saturday adjourned to November 18 the trial of ousted president Mohamed Morsi and 35 others on charges of espionage, a judicial source said.

Defendants face charges of "conspiring" with Palestinian resistance group Hamas and Lebanon's Hezbollah to carry out "terrorist acts" inside Egypt.

Morsi and his co-defendants emphatically deny the charges, which they insist are politically driven.

During Saturday's trial session, defendant and Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Beltagi asked the presiding judge to summon President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi to testify in his capacity as a former intelligence chief during the 2011 uprising that ended the autocracy of long-serving president Hosni Mubarak in 2011.

Morsi, Egypt's first democratically elected leader, was ousted by the military last year – after only one year in office – following massive protests against his presidency.

He currently faces multiple criminal charges, including incitement to murder, jailbreak and offending Egypt's judiciary.

Al-Sisi, a former army chief who is widely seen as the architect of Morsi's ouster, became president after winning a May presidential poll.