EGYPT COURT UPHOLDS DEATH SENTENCES FOR BROTHERHOOD LEADER, 182 OTHERS

MINYA, Egypt, 24 Sya’ban 1435/22 June 2014 (MINA) – An Egyptian court in the central province of Minya on Saturday upheld death sentences for 183 supporters of ousted president Mohamed Morsi, including the top Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Badie, a judicial source said.

“They were convicted of torching a police station and killing a police officer,” the source told Anadolu Agency as quoted by Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA).

The defendants, who included Muslim Brotherhood supreme guide Mohamed Badie, were convicted of committing violence, attacking two police stations and killing a policeman in Minya in August following the violent dispersal of two pro-Morsi sit-ins in Cairo, in which hundreds were killed.

The judicial source said that those condemned to death included a Christian man and a blind one.

The court also slapped four people, including two women, with life sentences and acquitted 496 others in the same case, the source said.

On April 28, the same court referred the files of the 183 defendants, along with the files of 500 others, to the grand Mufti, the country’s highest religious authority, to seek advice on their possible execution.

Trial judges postponed the trial for almost two hours due to the lack of enough security outside the courthouse where the relatives of the defendants assembled in apprehensive and pessimistic expectation.

Saturday’s ruling, which can be appealed, is the second against the supreme guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, the movement from which Morsi hails.

Badie was referred to the Mufti on Thursday for a possible death sentence on charges of inviting violence in Giza last summer.

Egyptian authorities have started a massive crackdown against the members and the leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood since Morsi’s ouster by the military last July. (T/E01/IR)

Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)