International Shia News Agency

Egypt : 25 Morsi supporters gave life terms

A judicial source said on Thursday that a court in the southern province of Assiut handed down life sentences to 25 defendants, while three received three-year terms, and two others were jailed for two years.

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) – A court in Egypt has sentenced 25 supporters of ousted president, Mohamed Morsi, to life in prison over alleged involvement in violence following a coup that removed the country’s leader from power.

A life sentence in the North African country amounts to 25 years in jail.

The court found the defendants guilty of setting police stations and government buildings on fire in the town of al-Ghanaim on August 14, 2013, shortly after police harshly dispersed thousands of Morsi supporters at two squares in the capital, Cairo, killing hundreds of them.

Another 141 defendants, including an official from Muslim Brotherhood movement, were acquitted, the source added.

The development comes as the authorities in Egypt have launched a brutal crackdown on supporters of Morsi since his ouster in a military coup led by Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, the current president and the former head of the armed forces, in July 2013.

On October 11, a court in Cairo sentenced Brotherhood leaders, Mohamed al-Beltagy and Safwat Hegazy, as well as a journalist and another defendant to 15 years in prison.

The court also sentenced four other defendants, including Osama Yassin, the former minister of youth under Morsi, to three years in jail.

Sisi is accused of leading the suppression of Brotherhood supporters, as hundreds of them have been killed in clashes with Egyptian security forces over the past year.

Human rights groups say the military crackdown on the supporters of Morsi has left over 1,400 people dead and 22,000 arrested, while some 200 people have been sentenced to death in mass trials.

 

 

Source:PressTV

www.shafaqna.com

 

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