Ousted Egyptian President Morsi Sentenced to 20 Years in Prison
Former Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi was sentenced to 20 years in prison by an Egyptian court Tuesday for charges connected to the 2012 killing of protesters outside his presidential palace.
Morsi, aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood, became Egypt’s first democratically-elected president following the toppling of Hosni Mubarak’s regime in 2011. He was overthrown a year later by army chief (and now president) Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, who has since had Morsi imprisoned and led a campaign against members of the Brotherhood and other Islamists.
The sentence stems from the death of 10 people, mostly members of the Brotherhood, killed in an attempt by Morsi’s supporters to disperse a crowd of protesters outside of the Egyptian presidential palace in December 2012. Morsi’s trial has been faced with vocal opposition, decried as a farce and an attempt to stifle opposition in the country. From the Associated Press:
Morsi’s questioning took place without his lawyers present during his detention in an undisclosed location for four months following his ouster in July 2013.
Amnesty said Morsi’s legal team was only able to access case files days before the trial began. It also documented irregularities, such as where abuses of his supporters — not his opponents — were the only evidence documented. The court also ignored what Amnesty said were deaths among Morsi’s supporters during the same protests.
“Convicting Mohammed Morsi, despite fundamental flaws in the legal process and what seems to be at best flimsy evidence produced in court under a gag order, utterly undermines this verdict,” Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, Amnesty International’s deputy Middle East and North Africa director, told the AP.
Twelve other members of the Brotherhood were also sentenced to 20 years. Morsi was acquitted on a charge of inciting the killing of protesters, which carries the death sentence. Just a day earlier, the BBC reports, an Egyptian court sentenced 22 members of the Brotherhood to death for an attack on a police station in Cairo—according to Al Jazeera, at least 1,212 people have been sentenced to death since 2014 under el-Sisi’s rule.
Morsi’s sentencing Tuesday was the first of at least four trials the ousted president faces; he also stands accused of leaking secrets and documents to Qatar.
