Egypt court sentences 529 Morsi supporters to death
March 24, 2014 02:24 pm
A
court in Egypt on Monday sentenced 529 supporters of ousted Islamist president
Mohamed Morsi to death after a mass trial, judicial sources said.
Islamist
backers of Morsi are facing a deadly crackdown launched by the
military-installed authorities since his ouster in July, with hundreds of
people killed and thousands arrested.
The
sentence was delivered in the second hearing of a trial which began on Saturday
in Minya, south of the capital.
Of
those sentenced, 153 are in detention and the rest are on the run, the sources
said, adding that 17 others were acquitted. The verdict can be appealed.
Those
sentenced are among more than 1,200 Morsi supporters on trial in Minya. A
second group of about 700 defendants will be in the dock on Tuesday.
They
are accused of attacking both people and public property in southern Egypt in
August, after security forces broke up two Cairo protest camps set up by Morsi
supporters on August 14.
They
are also charged with committing acts of violence that led to the deaths of two
policemen in Minya, judicial sources said.
The
accused include several leaders of Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood, including its
supreme guide Mohamed Badie.
Morsi,
Egypt’s first elected and civilian President was ousted by the army on July 3
in a move that triggered widespread unrest across the deeply polarised nation.
Hundreds
of people died in the August assault on the two Cairo protest camps and in
subsequent clashes that day.
Rights
group Amnesty International says at least 1,400 people have been killed in
violence across Egypt since then, and thousands more have been arrested.
Morsi
is himself currently on trial in three different cases, including one for
inciting the killing of protesters outside a presidential palace while he was
in office.
Morsi
was removed after just 12 months as president following mass street protests
against his rule amid allegations of power grabbing and worsening an already
weak economy. (AFP)
