A court in Egypt’s Cairo on Saturday sentenced 75 members and affiliates of the Muslim Brotherhood to death in a mass trial of 739 people who had held protests in favour of former President Mohamed Morsi in 2013. All the accused were charged after authorities violently dispersed the protest at Rabaa al-Adawiya square in Cairo on August 14, 2013, killing hundreds.
The 75 sentenced to death face several charges, from murder and “incitement to break the law” to “membership of a banned group” and “being part of an illegal gathering”, The Guardian reported. The most prominent figures who were handed the death penalty were senior Muslim Brotherhood leader Essam el-Erian, politician Mohamed el-Beltagy, Salafi cleric Safwat Hegazy, former Youth Minister Osama Yassin and cleric Abdel-Rahman el-Barr.
The court also sentenced the Muslim Brotherhood’s supreme leader, Mohammed Badie, and 46 others to life imprisonment.
As many as 374 accused, mostly Morsi supporters, were sentenced to 15 years in detention. Osama Morsi, the son of the detained Mohamed Morsi and 21 others were jailed for 10 years. As many as 215 accused, including photojournalist Mahmoud Abu Zeid, were sentenced to five years in jail.
Rights group Amnesty International had earlier called the trial “grossly unfair” and “a grotesque parody of justice”. The 2013 Egyptian coup saw of the end of the Muslim Brotherhood’s government, and brought Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to power.
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