Egypt court confirms Mohammed Morsi death sentence

The former Egyptian president was accused jailed on charges of spying for Hamas, Hizbollah, and Iran.

The Cairo Criminal Court sentenced former president Mohamed Morsi to life in prison over spying charges. Khaled Elfiqi / EPA / File June 2, 2015

CAIRO // An Egyptian court yesterday confirmed a death sentence on the former president Mohammed Morsi over a mass jailbreak during the 2011 uprising against Hosni Mubarak.

The death sentences on Mohammed Badie, general guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, and four other leaders of the group were also upheld.

More than 90 others, including the controversial preacher Youssef Al Qaradawi, were sentenced to death in their absence.

The sentences were originally imposed last month when the court convicted Morsi and his co-accused of killing and kidnapping policemen, attacking police offices and breaking out of jail.

Judge Shaaban Al Shami said supporters of Hamas, Hizbollah, Sinai-based militants and Brotherhood leaders had participated in storming the jails.

The death sentences had been referred for approval to the Grand Mufti, Egypt’s top religious authority. The judge said yesterday the Grand Mufti had ruled that the death sentences were permissible.

Earlier, he also sentenced Morsi to life imprisonment on separate charges of spying for Hamas, Hizbollah and Iran.

Wearing his blue prison suit, the bespectacled and bearded Morsi listened calmly as the judge read the verdict on the prison-break charges.

He appeared unfazed, smiling and waving to lawyers as other convicted men chanted: “Down, down with military rule.”

The Brotherhood, of which Morsi was a leading member before he became president in June 2012, described the rulings as “null and void” and called for a popular uprising on Friday.

Morsi was deposed in 2013 following mass protests against his rule. Since his overthrow, Egyptian authorities have taken a tough line with Brotherhood supporters, with hundreds killed and thousands arrested.

The rulings can be appealed against but they mark yet another setback for leaders of the extremist group.

A senior Muslim Brotherhood member condemned the trial. “This verdict is a nail in the coffin of democracy in Egypt,” said Yahya Hamid, a former minister in Morsi’s cabinet and head of international relations for the Brotherhood, speaking from Istanbul.

Western diplomats say Egyptian officials have acknowledged that executing Morsi would risk turning him into a martyr. The Brotherhood has survived for decades, and maintains some popular support through its charities.

The death sentences “signal the Egyptian state as rejecting de-escalation in the crackdown against the Brotherhood”, said H A Hellyer, a leading analyst at the Brookings Institution in Washington.

President Abdel Fatah El Sisi, who was head of the military when Morsi was deposed, says the Brotherhood poses a grave threat to national security.

Many Egyptians have overlooked Mr El Sisi’s crackdown on the group and are thankful that the president has delivered a measure of stability after years of turmoil.

“I don’t care whether the verdict was fair or not. Morsi deserved it,” said one young man at a cafe in Abbasiya in Cairo.

* Reuters and Agence France-Presse