Friday, November 18, 2016

Death sentences against Morsi and 21 other member of the Muslim Brotherhood revoked

Prisoner Morsi
Egypt’s Court of Cassation revoked on Tuesday 14 november death sentences and ordered retrials for ousted Islamist President Mohamed Morsi and other Muslim Brotherhood leaders over the 2011 Wadi El-Natrun prison break case.
The court also revoked the death penalties against Muslim Brotherhood Supreme Guide Mohamed Badie, and other MB figures including Brotherhood deputy leader Rashad Bayoumy, and 2012's parliament speaker and MB figure Saad El-Katatni. The court also cancelled life sentences for 21 others in the same case.
The defendants had been charged with "damaging and setting fire to prison buildings," "murder," "attempted murder," "looting prison weapons depots" and "releasing prisoners" while escaping from the prison outside Cairo during the January 2011 uprising.
This was the only death sentence issued against Morsi to date.
The ex-president has received only one final verdict: a 20-year imprisonment handed down in October over the Ittihadeya clashes case, after his defence exhausted all appeals in the case.
Morsi is still being tried in three other cases. In the first, known as the Qatar espionage case, he was sentenced to a total of 40 years in prison (a life imprisonment sentence of 25 plus an additional 15 years). A court hearing to decide on his appeal is scheduled for 27 November.
In the second case, Morsi and 16 others including Brotherhood figures Mohamed Badie and Essam El-Erian, were convicted of espionage (unrelated to the Qatar case) and sentenced last June to life in prison.
In the case, prosecutors charged Morsi and 35 other defendants with conspiring with foreign powers -- including Hamas, Lebanon's Hezbollah and Iran's Revolutionary Guards -- to destabilise Egypt.The sentence has been appealed.
Finally, Morsi is being tried with others on charges of insulting the judiciary. A hearing on this case is set for December 10.

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