Global media is widely reporting that an Egyptian court has sentenced ousted president Mohammed Morsi to 20 years in prison without parole for the killing of protesters in December 2012. According to an Australian Broadcasting report:
April 21, 2015 An Egyptian court has sentenced ousted president Mohammed Morsi to 20 years in prison without parole for the killing of protesters in December 2012.
The court also sentenced 12 Muslim Brotherhood leaders to 20 years in prison without parole, in a decision broadcast on state television.
The men, including Mohamed El-Beltagy, general secretary of the Muslim Brotherhood’s now-banned political party, and former parliamentarian Essam El-Erian, were sentenced alongside Morsi.
It was the first ruling against the Muslim Brotherhood since Morsi was toppled in 2013 after mass protests staged by then army chief, now president, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.
Morsi stood in a cage in court as judge Ahmed Sabry Youssef read out the ruling, which was broadcast live on state television.
The men were convicted on charges of violence, kidnapping and torture stemming from the killing of protesters during demonstrations in 2012.
They were acquitted of murder charges, which carry the death sentence.
Displaying a four-finger salute symbolising resistance to the state’s crackdown on Islamists, the defendants chanted ‘God is greatest’ after the verdict was read.
‘His trial has been a travesty of justice, which has been scripted and controlled by the government and entirely unsupported by evidence,’ Amr Darrag, a former minister under Morsi, said in a statement.
A lawyer for some of the defendants said they would appeal.
Read the rest here.
We last reported on legal proceedings against Dr. Morsi in August 2014 when we discussed Egyptian news agency reports that he had refused to answer a prosecutor’s questions about allegations that he leaked classified documents to Qatar via Al-Jazeera. We reported in February 2014 that Egyptian prosecutors had accused ousted President Mohammed Morsi of leaking state secrets to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. We reported in October 2013 that Dr. Morsi’s trial on charges of inciting the murder of protesters was to begin that November.
In June 2012, the Egypt Independent published a revealing profile of Mohamed Morsi.
For a compendium of the extremist statements made by Morsi, go here.
