Former Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi sentenced to death

An Egyptian court sentenced the former Muslim Brotherhood president Mohammed Morsi and more than 100 other defendants to death on Saturday over jailbreaks during the 2011 uprising.

Morsi, sitting in a caged dock, raised his fists in defiance when the judge read his verdict.

Many of those sentenced were tried in their absence, including the cleric Yusuf Al Qaradawi, a spritual leader to the Brotherhood, who resides in Qatar.

Under Egyptian law, death sentences are passed on to the mufti, the government’s interpreter of Islamic law, who plays an advisory role.

The court will pronounce its final decision on June 2.

Morsi, who was removed from office by the military in July 2013, was spared the death sentence in the first of two trials that concluded on Thursday, in which the court advised death sentences for 16 defendants on espionage charges.

They had been charged with colluding with foreign powers, the Palestinian militant group Hamas and Iran to destabilise Egypt.

The court will pronounce the verdicts for Morsi and the remaining 18 defendants in that trial at a later date.

The court then delivered its verdict in the other the case, in which Morsi and 128 defendants were accused of plotting jailbreaks and attacks on police during the uprising that overthrew president Hosni Mubarak in 2011.

Many of the defendants sentenced to death along with Morsi are Palestinians alleged to work with Hamas in neighbouring Gaza, and were tried in their absence along with a Lebanese Hizbollah commander.

They were alleged to have colluded with the Muslim Brotherhood to carry out attacks in Egypt in what prosecutors allege was a vast conspiracy.

Source: thenational

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