Military court sentences Brotherhood chief, others to 10 years

An Egyptian military court sentenced on Tuesday Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Badie and other senior leaders to 10 years in jail for murder and inciting violence.

The court sentenced Badie, the Islamist organisation’s spiritual leader, over violence in the north-eastern city of Suez in August 2013.

Brotherhood leaders Mohamed El-Beltagy and Safwat Hegazy also received 10-year sentences in the case after they were convicted of “killing around 33 civilians, inciting violence, rioting” and setting fire to churches and army vehicles.

The charges stem from violence in Suez that came in the aftermath of the security forces’ deadly dispersal of a sit-in in Cairo’s Rabaa El-Adaweya by supporters of ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi that left hundreds dead in August 2013.

Ninety co-defendants were handed life terms in the same case, which amounts to 25 years in Egypt.

Fifty-six others were sentenced between three to seven jail terms, all in absentia, and 50 were acquitted. Badie has faced numerous trials and has been handed two death sentences and five life sentences in separate cases, which can still be appealed.

Beltagy and Hegazy stand trial in several other cases along with other leading Brotherhood members, including Morsi himself.

Morsi was ousted in 2013 after mass protests against his one-year rule. Hundreds have been killed in street violence since, and thousands, mostly Islamists, have been jailed and hundreds more have been sentenced to death, though many have won retrials.

source: Ahram Online