Court sentences ousted president, Brotherhood leaders to death

An Egyptian court sentenced deposed president Mohammed Morsi to death on Tuesday for killing, kidnapping and other offenses during a 2011 mass jailbreak.

The General Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, Mohamed Badie, and four other Brotherhood leaders were also handed the death penalty. More than 80 others were sentenced to death in absentia.

Earlier on Tuesday, the court sentenced Morsi to life in prison in a separate case related to conspiring with foreign groups.

The Islamist became Egypt's first democratically elected president after the downfall of Hosni Mubarak in 2011 but was himself overthrown by the army in 2013 after mass protests against his rule.

The court last month convicted Morsi and his fellow defendants of killing and kidnapping police officers, attacking police facilities and breaking out of jail during the 2011 political turmoil against Mubarak.

After Tuesday's sentencing, a senior Muslim Brotherhood member said the trial had "fallen below all international standards".

Morsi, Badie and 15 others were also given life sentences - which under Egyptian law, means serving 25 years - for conspiring with the Palestinian group Hamas, which rules Gaza. They included senior Brotherhood figures Essam el-Erian and Saad el-Katatni.

The court sentenced Muslim Brotherhood leaders Khairat el-Shater, Mohamed el-Beltagy and Ahmed Abdelaty to death in the same case. Death sentences were also handed to 13 other defendants in absentia. The verdicts can be appealed.

Judge Shaaban el-Shami said the Grand Mufti, Egypt's top religious authority, had said in his opinion that the death sentence was permissible for the defendants who had been referred to him.

Morsi, dressed in a blue prison suit, was calm and smiled slightly as the judge read out the first sentence in the court in the Police Academy.

Morsi has said the court is not legitimate, describing legal proceedings against him as part of a coup led by then-army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in 2013.

Since Morsi's overthrow, Egyptian authorities have waged a crackdown on Islamists in which hundreds have been killed and thousands arrested.

Sisi, now president, said the Brotherhood poses a grave threat to national security. The group maintains it is committed to peaceful activism.

Reuters - Xinhua