An Egyptian court sentenced deposed President Mohamed Mursi to death
on Tuesday (Wednesday NZT) over a mass jail break during the country's
2011 uprising and issued sweeping punishments against the leadership of
Egypt's oldest Islamic group.The general guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, Mohamed Badie, and four other Brotherhood leaders were also handed the death penalty. More than 90 others, including influential cleric Youssef al-Qaradawi, were sentenced to death in absentia.
The Brotherhood described the rulings as "null and void" and called for a popular uprising on Friday.
The sentences were part of a crackdown launched after an army takeover stripped Mursi of power in 2013 following mass protests against his rule. Since his overthrow, Egyptian authorities have waged a crackdown on Islamists in which hundreds have been killed and thousands arrested.
The Islamist Mursi became Egypt's first freely elected president after the downfall of longtime leader Hosni Mubarak in 2011.
Judge Shaaban el-Shami, said the Grand Mufti, Egypt's top religious authority, had said in his opinion that the death sentence was permissible for the defendants who had been referred to him.
Wearing his blue prison suit, the bespectacled and bearded Mursi listened calmly as Shami read out the verdict in the case relating to the 2011 mass jail break, in which Mursi faced charges of killing, kidnapping and other offences.
Shami had earlier given Mursi a 25-year sentence in a case relating to conspiring with foreign groups.
Mursi appeared unfazed, smiling, and waving to lawyers as other defendants chanted: "Down, down with military rule," after the verdicts, which can be appealed, were read out at the court session in the Police Academy.
The rulings mark yet another setback for leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood, and increase the chances of its youth taking up arms against the authorities, breaking what the group says is a long tradition of non-violence.
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