CAIRO
An Egyptian court on Tuesday sentenced former President Mohamed Morsi to death over jailbreak charges.
The court also sentenced five leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood, including top leader Mohamed Badie, to death on charges of taking part in a mass jailbreak in 2011.
Another 94 co-defendants were sentenced – in absentia – to the gallows, including prominent Muslim scholar Yusuf al-Qaradawi, over similar charges.
The court further slapped 21 defendants with life sentences and eight others with a 2-year jail term each over similar charges.
Egyptian authorities accused Morsi and 128 others of taking part in the mass jailbreak during Egypt's 2011 uprising that ousted autocratic President Hosni Mubarak.
The same court earlier on Tuesday sentenced Morsi and 16 co-defendants to life over charges of conspiring with Palestinian group Hamas and Lebanon’s Hezbollah to carry out “terrorist acts” in Egypt.
The court also sentenced 16 defendants to death on similar charges.
‘Politicized verdicts’
Tuesday’s rulings are still subject to appeal.
"These are politicized verdicts," Osama Morsi, the son of the ousted president, told Anadolu Agency on Tuesday. “We do not recognize these verdicts.”
Osama said the court rulings reflect “the demise and fear of the coup regime and its attempt to escape from the sword of the revolution”.
Meanwhile, Nadim Khoury, Lebanese director of Human Rights Watch, described the verdicts as “unfair”.
“The death sentences against Morsi and Brotherhood leaders are politicized and unfair,” he told Anadolu Agency.
He went on to call for a retrial of the defendants on the alleged charges against them.
Morsi, Egypt's first-ever democratically elected president, was ousted by the military in a 2013 coup – after only one year in office – following protests against his presidency.
Since Morsi's ouster, Egyptian authorities have launched a relentless crackdown on dissent that has largely targeted Morsi supporters, leaving hundreds dead and thousands behind bars.
