Egypt’s ousted President Mohamed Mursi has been told he faces execution, along with more than 100 supporters of his now banned Muslim Brotherhood
ADVERTISEMENTEgypt’s ousted President Mohamed Mursi has been told he faces execution, along with more than 100 supporters of his now banned Muslim Brotherhood, over a mass jailbreak during the Arab Spring uprising in 2011 that toppled longtime leader Hosni Mubarak.
Mursi, Egypt’s first freely-elected president, is already serving 20 years for ordering the arrest and torture of protesters during his own time in power.
Top Brotherhood leaders Mohamed Badie and Mohamed el-Beltagy were among those also given death penalties.
Like all capital sentences in Egypt, the sentences will be referred to its top religious authority, the Grand Mufti, for a non-binding opinion.
Some defendants flashed a four-finger salute symbolising resistance to the state’s anti-Islamist crackdown and shouted: “Down with military rule!”
Hours after the sentence, followed by Egyptians on television, there was a reminder of the violence that has followed Mursi’s fall.
Security forces are usually the target of Islamist militant groups but on Saturday in the North Sinai city of al-Arish, two judges, a prosecutor and their driver were shot dead.
Back in Cairo, Mursi can appeal. He describes legal proceedings against him as part of a coup in 2013 by Egypt’s current leader Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.