683 MB Supporters Sentenced To Death

An Egyptian court in the southern city of Minya has issued a death sentence on Monday for 683 supporters of the ousted Islamic President Morsi including Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohammed Badie. The verdict came one month after 529 people were sentenced to death in a mass trial in the same court room.

The defendants faced charges over an attack on a police station in Minya in 2013 in which a policeman was killed. The clashes between the security forces and Morsi’s supporters erupted after the security forces launched raids on pro-Morsi protest camps in the capital. The court also banned a youth group that supported the uprising which overthrew Hosni Mubarak in 2011. There was chaos outside the court room with women gathering outside the building holding photos of their loved ones. Some collapsed on the ground hearing the verdict.

Of the 683 men sentenced on Monday, only 70 are in custody, said Khaled Koumi, a defense attorney in the case. The defendants were not permitted to appear in court for their trial, which involved only two short hearings, said Koumi.  Out of the 529 death sentences passed in March, 492 were commuted to life imprisonment.

Egypt’s new military-backed government has imprisoned thousands of Islamist members of the now-banned Muslim Brotherhood as well as liberal democracy activists, journalists and university students who supported them since the toppling of the former president.

The Obama administration condemned the ruling, saying that it defied “even the most basic standards of international justice.” The mass trial hearings have drawn widespread criticism from human rights groups and the UN. The trials took just hours each and the court prevented defense lawyers from presenting their case, according to Human Right Watch

Infoeditor