Cairo // Mohammed Morsi was on Saturday sentenced to life in prison for leading the Muslim Brotherhood and 15 years for stealing secret Egyptian state security documents.
The former Egyptian president was acquitted of supplying classified documents to Qatar but the court in Cairo sentenced six others to death for espionage.
Prosecutors had said Morsi and his aides were involved in leaking sensitive documents to Qatari intelligence that exposed the location of weapons held by the Egyptian armed forces.
The six sentenced to death for passing secret documents to Qatar included three journalists who were tried in their absence. Two of them, Ibrahim Hilal and Jordanian citizen Alaa Sablan, worked for the Qatar broadcaster Al Jazeera. The third, Asmaa Al Khatib, is a reporter with the pro-Brotherhood news outlet Rassd.
The three others sentenced to death, who were present at the trial, were documentary producer Ahmed Abdo, EgyptAir cabin crew member Mohamed Kilani and Ahmed Thabet, a university teaching assistant.
All those convicted can appeal to the court of cassation. Those who were tried in their absence can seek a retrial if they appear in person.
A court sentenced Morsi to death last year in connection with prison breaks and attacks on police stations during the 2011 uprising that removed president Hosni Mubarak from power. He is appealing against that verdict.
Morsi was one of the Brotherhood leaders who were jailed during the 18-day uprising, and escaped with thousands of inmates who broke out of prison.
He has also been sentenced to life in prison for espionage on behalf of Iran and other countries, and the militant groups Hamas and Hizbollah. And he was sentenced to 20 years in prison for clashes outside his presidential palace in December 2012 in which up to 10 people died.
Morsi was stripped of power by the army in 2013 amid mass protests against his rule after he issued a decree placing his decisions above judicial review.
* Agence France-Presse and Reuters
