Mohamed Mursi gets death penalty

Cairo: An Egyptian court sentenced deposed Islamist president Mohamed Mursi and more than 100 other defendants to death on Saturday over jail breaks during the 2011 uprising. Mursi, sitting in a caged dock in the blue uniform of convicts having already been sentenced to 20 years for inciting violence, raised his fists in defiance when the judge read out his verdict.

Among the others sentenced to death were Mohamed Badei, the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood who had already been handed the death penalty in another trial, and his deputy Khairat al-Shater. Mursi, the country’s first democratically elected president, had ruled for only a year before mass protests prompted the military to overthrow him in July 2013.

Under Egyptian law, death sentences are passed on to the mufti, the government’s interpreter of Islamic law, who plays an advisory role. The defendants can appeal even after the mufti’s recommendation. The court will pronounce its final decision on June 2.

Mursi was spared the death sentence in the first of two trials that concluded on Saturday, 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 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.