A court in Egypt has sentenced former President Mohammed Morsi and 19 others to three years in prison for allegedly insulting the judiciary, the BBC reported on Saturday. Morsi is already serving a life sentence in prison.
The Cairo Criminal Court ruled that the defendants insulted and cursed the judiciary and its judges in the media, Ahram Online reported. Their statements were full of “slurs and hatred to courts and judicial authority”, the judge said.
Morsi allegedly accused judge Ali al-Namr of rigging the parliamentary elections in 2005 in a speech on June 26, 2013, when he was in office. The Court of Cassation and a judge said Morsi did not back up by his statement with facts, Egypt Independent reported.
The military overthrew Morsi in 2013, a year after he became the country’s first democratically elected leader. The new government then launched a crackdown on his supporters and the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist movement to which he belongs.
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