Court sentences MB leaders to death along with 75 defendants

Cairo Criminal Court referred the papers of 75 defendants in the case known publicly as “Rabaa sit-in dispersal” to Egypt’s Mufti (Top religious authority) for religious consultant in their execution.

Among the 75 defendants sentenced to death Saturday are members of the top Muslim Brotherhood guidance bureau: Essam el-Erian, Safwat Hegazy, Mohamed el Beltagy, Usama Yassin, and former president Mohamed Morsi, Essam Maged, Abdel Rahman al-Barr, Safwat Hegazy, Mohamed el-Beltagy, Usama Yassin, Issam Sultan, Basem Odeh, Wagdy Ghoneim.

The case includes more than 700 defendants who are charged with staging an armed gathering in Rabaa square in August 2013, illegally possessing and handling weapons, blocking driveways, deliberately vandalizing public property, along with other counts relating to murdering policemen and citizens.

According to Saturday’s ruling, photojournalist Mahmoud Abu Zaid (known as Shawkan) will be handed a final sentence on August 7. Shawkan was on assignment for UK-led Demotix when he was arrested back in 2013.

During the case’s hearing session held in late October, Shawkan said that he was only doing his job as a press photographer and that he was among other photographers who were called on by the government to cover the events of the Rabaa sit-in dispersal.

On August 14, 2013, Security Forces set out to disperse the Muslim Brotherhood sit-in in Nasr City’s Rabaa al-Adawiya, along with another sit-in located in Nahda Square, Giza.