Egyptian court sentences 529 Morsi backers to death

By Nehal El-Sherif and Shabtai Gold, dpa
24.03.2014

Cairo (dpa) - Death sentences were handed down Monday on 529 supporters of toppled president Mohammed Morsi on the second day of the biggest trial in Egypt's history, lawyers and state media said.

They were found guilty of rioting and attacking police facilities in August in the southern city of Minya, state television said.

Judge Saeed Youssef acquitted 16 remaining defendants.

Only 135 people were in custody. The rest were sentenced in absentia.

The judge issued the verdict during the second session of the court, without giving the defendants' lawyers time to present a defence.

All the defendants have a right to appeal.

"This is a mass death sentence at a scale we have never seen before, not only in Egypt but in the world," Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, Middle East and North Africa deputy director at Amnesty International, said.

She called on authorities to quash the sentences and the Grand Mufti not to ratify the death sentences.

According to Egypt's legal system, death sentences must be approved by the Grand Mufti, the top religious scholar at Al-Azhar, a religious-studies institution.

Judge Saeed Youssef said Monday's verdict will be officially finalized on April 28, after the Mufti responds to the court, al-Ahram newspaper reported.

The case opened Saturday, when the session only lasted for 45 minutes, one of the defence lawyers, Ahmed Shabeeb, said.

On Monday, lawyers were not allowed inside the court and the defendants were not present, he added.

"This process and verdict are against all laws in the judicial system," Shabeeb, who represents 25 defendants, added.

The defendants were charged with killing a police officer in Minya, attacking the police station and seizing police weapons, al-Ahram reported.

Another trial is expected Tuesday of another group of more than 600 defendants including the Brotherhood's top leader, Mohammed Badie, judicial sources said. They are accused of rioting in another village in Minya province.

Sahraoui said, "It is all the more concerning that this trial appears to have very little to do with justice," adding that it "appears as if the decision was to find them guilty at any cost."

"If we look at the way Egypt is dealing with abuses committed by security forces, and look at how it is dealing with supporters of deposed president Morsi, it really raises the question if the system is truly independent," she added.

She was referring to a case this month where a police officer was given 10 years in prison for manslaughter after 37 people died of suffocation from tear gas inside a prison transfer truck.

"The justice system, instead of offering a remedy for victims of human-rights abuses, has become part of the machinery to repress people," she said. "Egypt has been getting away with many abuses and very little criticism."

"This is a catastrophic sentence," human-rights lawyer Gamal Eid said. "Though I am certain the verdict and the case procedures will change during the appeal, today's sentence will affect the judiciary in Egypt, and possibly in the whole world, for many years."

Eid, who heads the Cairo-based rights group Arabic Network for Human Rights Information, said it is hard to predict what will happen in Tuesday's session given the "lack of reason seen today."

Morsi, Egypt's first democratically elected president, was toppled by the army in July after mass protests against his one-year rule.

Hundreds of his supporters were killed in security crackdowns that followed his overthrow and thousands were detained.

The riots began after security forces dispersed two major pro-Morsi sit-ins in Cairo on August 14, which sparked unrest across the country.

In December, the military-backed interim government designated the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization.

The Muslim Brotherhood's office in London described the sentence as "clear violation of all norms of humane and legal justice."

"These unjust sentences will not weaken our resolve. Egyptian people will continue their peaceful revolution until justice is served," it added in a statement.