The verdict was announced Saturday in Cairo. An initial death penalty verdict in a mass trial is usually confirmed at a later hearing after receiving the approval of the mufti, the official interpreter of Islamic law.
Morsi, Egypt’s first freely elected president, was ousted by the military in July 2013 following days of mass street protests by Egyptians demanding that he be removed because of his divisive policies.
The ousted leader already is serving a 20-year sentence following his conviction on April 21 on charges linked to the killing of protesters outside a Cairo presidential palace in December 2012.
Morsi’s overthrow triggered a government crackdown on his Muslim Brotherhood movement in which hundreds of people have died and thousands have been imprisoned.
Rights groups accuse Sissi’s regime — widely backed by Egyptians tired of years of political turmoil — of using the judiciary as a tool to repress opposition.
Morsi was sentenced last month to 20 years in jail for inciting violence against protesters in 2012 when he was president, in a verdict Amnesty International denounced as a “travesty of justice.”
On Saturday, the judge issued verdicts in two other trials.
In Saturday’s first case, Morsi and 130 others, including dozens of members of the Palestinian Hamas terror group and Lebanon’s Shiite Hezbollah group, were accused of escaping from prisons and attacking police during the 2011 uprising against longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak.
Twenty-seven defendants including Morsi were in custody, while the rest, including prominent Qatar-based cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi, were tried in absentia.
Some 850 people were killed during the anti-Mubarak uprising as protesters rallied primarily against decades of police abuses.
Four years after that revolt, the Muslim Brotherhood has been blamed for most of the unrest in Egypt.
Sissi has vowed to eradicate the Brotherhood, an 87-year-old movement that topped successive polls between Mubarak’s fall and Morsi’s presidential election victory in May 2012.
The authorities designated it a terrorist group in December 2013, making even verbal expressions of support punishable by stiff jail terms.
In Saturday’s second case, Morsi and 35 co-defendants, including Brotherhood leaders, were accused of conspiring with foreign powers, Hamas and Shiite Iran to destabilize Egypt.
They were accused of providing the Islamic republic’s elite Revolutionary Guards with security reports in order to destabilize the country.
Stay informed. Subscribe to our newsletter
Prosecutors say the defendants carried out espionage activity on behalf of the international Muslim Brotherhood organization and Hamas from 2005 to August 2013 “with the aim of perpetrating terror attacks in the country in order to spread chaos and topple the state.”
During Morsi’s presidency, ties flourished between Cairo and Hamas, the Palestinian affiliate of the Muslim Brotherhood which controls neighboring Gaza.
But Egypt’s new authorities accuse Hamas of helping jihadists carry out attacks inside the country.
In addition to Saturday’s verdicts, Morsi faces two other trials — for insulting the judiciary, and spying for Qatar, a key backer of the Muslim Brotherhood.
The Standard Group Plc is a
multi-media organization with investments in media platforms spanning newspaper
print operations, television, radio broadcasting, digital and online services. The
Standard Group is recognized as a leading multi-media house in Kenya with a key
influence in matters of national and international interest.
join