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Ousted Egyptian leader Mohamed Morsi who collapsed and died in court was 'killed', Turkey's President Recep Erdogan claimed today. 

Yesterday thousands of mourners took part in prayers for Morsi in Turkey a day after the Egyptian president collapsed and died in court. Worshippers packed into squares and mosques in Ankara and Diyabakir to offer prayers in absentia for Morsi, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood who won Egypt's first democratic election in 2012 before being deposed.  

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was a close ally of Morsi during his short tenure as president, and one of the fiercest international critics of the coup that toppled him. In Egypt, a small ceremony was held Tuesday to bury Morsi in a cemetery in the east of the capital Cairo after his family said a request for a public burial in his hometown were denied by Abdel Fattah el-Sisi's government. 

At Istanbul's Fatih mosque, where thousands joined in prayers, Erdogan called Morsi a "martyr" and blamed Egypt's "tyrants" for his death, adding that he doesn't believe that Morsi died of natural causes. 

"I don't believe that this was a normal death," Erdogan said. The Turkish president also denounced the Egyptian authorities for burying Morsi discreetly, with only a small number of family members and confidants present.

"They are so cowardly that they could not even deliver his body to his family," Erdogan said.