Egypt sentences deposed Islamist president Morsi to death

An Egyptian court sentenced deposed
Islamist president Mohamed Morsi and more
than 100 other defendants to death on
Saturday over jail breaks 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
absentia, including prominent Islamic cleric
Yusuf al-Qaradawi 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 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 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 jail
breaks and attacks on police during the
uprising that overthrew president Hosni
Mubarak in 2011.
More than 100 were sentenced to death along
with Morsi.
Many of the defendants are Palestinians
alleged to work with Hamas in neighbouring
Gaza, and were tried in absentia along with a
Lebanese Hezbollah commander.
They were alleged to have colluded with
Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood to carry out
attacks in Egypt in what prosecutors allege
was a vast conspiracy.
With this verdict, Morsi and other former
opposition members have been condemned
for violence during the anti-Mubarak protest,
while Mubarak himself beat charges in a trial
over the deaths of anti-government
protesters during the 18-day revolt that
toppled him.