Global media is widely reporting that Mohamed Morsi, the deposed former President of Egypt and an Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood leader, has been sentenced to life in prison in Egypt in connection with an espionage trial where he was accused of passing documents to Qatar. According to a BBC report:
The Islamist former President of Egypt, Mohammed Morsi, has been sentenced to life in prison at the end of an espionage trial.
He was one of a number of defendants accused of passing documents to Qatar.
Morsi’s lawyer told AFP that he had been acquitted of spying in this case, but convicted of leading an illegal organisation.
Six others on trial, including two journalists for the broadcaster al-Jazeera, were sentenced to death.
The two journalists were not in court and were sentenced to death in absentia.
Morsi was deposed in 2013. He has already been given a life sentence and condemned to death in earlier, separate court cases.
All of the rulings can still be appealed.
They come against a background of scathing criticism of the Egyptian judicial system by international human rights activists.
Tens of thousands of people are believed to have been jailed by Egyptian authorities, most of them supporters of Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood, since the former president was overthrown following mass protests against his rule.
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The GMBDW reported in June 2015 that an Egyptian court had sentenced more than 90 Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood members to death in connection with the 2011 mass jailbreak at the center of previous court rulings. This sentence reportedly included Mohamed Morsi, former Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood Supreme Guide Mohamed Badie, and Global Muslim Brotherhood leader Youssef Qaradawi sentenced in absentia.
(Note: Given the large number of trials and sentences in these cases, the GMBDWis doing our best to report on them but we cannot guarantee the accuracy of any given report.)
For a profile on Mohamed Morsi, go here.