Cairo: Egypt’s top court on Thursday cancelled the death sentences and ordered the retrial of banned group Muslim Brotherhood’s Supreme Guide Mohamed Badie and 11 others convicted for planning attacks against the state by inciting chaos and violence in 2013.
Badie, 71, the supreme guide of the banned group and 36 others including US-Egyptian citizen Mohamed Soltan were convicted of setting up an “operation room” to direct their supporters as part of plans to defy the state and spread violence and chaos.
The events unfolded after the dispersal of Rabaa and Nahda sit-ins in August 2013 by police after the ouster of first Islamist president Moh-ammed Morsi.
Twenty-five other defendants who were sentenced to death or life in prison by Egypt’s Court of Cassation will be retried. They had appealed against the verdict which was accepted by the country’s top court.
Badie’s co-defendants include US-Egyptian citizen Mohamed Soltan, who had been given life sentence. Soltan, was sentenced for false information to destabilise the security of Egypt and funding the mass protest of the supporters of Morsi in Rabaa which left hundreds dead.
Badie was sentenced in March. The court in April confirmed the sentences after they werereviewed by Egypt's Grand Mufti. According to the Egyptian law, the Grand Mufti must review all death sentences although his decision is not binding.
Badie, the top leader of the now-banned Muslim Brotherhood, was arrested in August 2013. He, Soltan and50 other leaders were referred to the criminal court in February 2014.
Since Morsi's ouster in 2013, the Egyptian government has been cracking down on the Muslim Brotherhood and its supporters. The Muslim Brotherhood was designated as a terrorist organisation in November 2013 by the government.
Some 22,000 people have been arrested, including most of the Brotherhood's leaders, since Morsi's ouster.
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