By Michael Hernandez
WASHINGTON, D.C.
The Obama administration derided a new wave of death sentences handed out by an Egyptian court Monday.
A total of 683 people were sentenced to death, including Mohammed Badie, the spiritual leader of the now outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, for their role in an attack on a police station in which an Egyptian police officer was killed last August.
The presiding judge in Monday’s proceedings, Said Youssef, reached his decision after a court session that lasted minutes.
“Today’s preliminary death sentences against 683 defendants and the upholding of death sentences against 37 defendants from a March 25 decision are unconscionable,” said Jen Psaki, the State Department spokeswoman in a statement released to the press.
The same judge who issued Monday’s ruling sentenced 529 other individuals to death last month after only two court sessions, sparking international condemnation. Youssef confirmed the death sentences of 37 of those individuals Monday, while commuting all others to life in prison.
The White House offered its own condemnation of Monday’s verdict, urging Egyptian authorities to put an end to the use of mass trials.
“While judicial independence is a vital part of democracy, this verdict cannot be reconciled with Egypt’s obligations under international human rights law,” said Jay Carney, the White House press secretary, in a released statement. “We urge the Egyptian government to end the use of mass trials, reverse this and previous mass sentences, and ensure that every citizen is afforded due process.”
Carney echoed the Obama administration’s response to last month’s death sentences by saying that Monday’s verdict “defies even the most basic standards of international justice.”
A separate court decision to ban the activities of the April 6 Youth Movement, a leftist group, is “also troubling,” according to the State Department spokeswoman.
Both of Monday’s rulings “run counter to the most basic democratic principles and foster the instability, extremism, and radicalization that Egypt’s interim government says it seeks to resolve,” Psaki said.
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