Court Upturns Death Sentence Ruling On Mohammed Morsi

Posted by African Examiner African News, Lagos, News Tuesday, November 15th, 2016

BALTIMORE, MD (AFRICAN EXAMINER) – An Egyptian appeals court has upturned the death sentence handed down against the ousted former President Mohamed Morsi.

The Court of Cassation ordered that Morsi be retried on the charges of taking part in prison breaks and violence against policemen during the 2011 Arab Spring, in which long serving ex-President Hosni Mubarak was toppled.

The charge is one of four counts Morsi has been standing trial since his overthrow in 2013.

Similarly, the ruled that five co-defendants, including the supreme guide of the proscribed Muslim Brotherhood, Mr. Mohamed Badie, who has also been given death sentences in June 2015, are to be retried.

However, about 100 suspects who are also being tried in absentia are not affected by the appeals ruling.

It would be recalled that in last month, the same appeals court upheld a 20-year jail sentence handed down against Morsi in April in a separate trial on charges of ordering the use of deadly force against protesters during his year in power.

Morsi has also been sentenced to life in prison in two other trials.

In one, he was convicted of spying for Iran, Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas.

Morsi’s short-lived administration which was supported to the power by The Brotherhood was toppled by the former Chief army staff (during his tenure), Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, now the incumbent Egyptian President.

The group has since been blacklisted and subjected to a crackdown which led to the killing of hundreds of his supporters, while several are either standing trial or serving different jail terms.