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Egypt court upholds life sentence for 10 Muslim Brotherhood leaders

Cairo - The leaders including Mohamed Badie were found guilty of charges related to killing policemen and organising mass jail breaks in 2011.

Egypt’s highest appeals court upheld on Sunday the sentencing of 10 leaders of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, including the group’s head, to life imprisonment, the state-owned MENA news agency reported.

In 2019, a Cairo criminal court found all 10, including the group’s supreme guide Mohamed Badie, guilty of charges related to killing policemen and organising mass jail breaks during Egypt’s 2011 uprising. That revolt culminated in the ouster of long-time president Hosni Mubarak. The defendants were found guilty of helping around 20,000 prisoners escape, and of undermining national security by conspiring with foreign militant groups — the Palestinian Hamas and Lebanon’s Hezbollah.

Meanwhile, the Court of Cassation acquitted eight middle-rank leaders of the organisation, who were sentenced earlier to 15 years in prison.

All of the sentences, which the court considered on appeal, are final.

This is the latest of several life sentences for Muslim Brotherhood leaders, who stood several trials since the crackdown on the group in 2013 following the ouster of president, the late Mohammed Morsi. Morsi had hailed from the group’s ranks but his one-year rule had proven divisive and provoked nationwide protests.

Tens of thousands of Egyptians have been arrested since 2013, and many have fled the country. Morsi himself was a defendant in the prison-break case, but he collapsed in a courtroom and died while appearing in a separate trial in summer 2019. A judge eventually dropped the charges against Morsi, who in 2011 escaped with other Brotherhood leaders two days after they were detained amid a crackdown by Mubarak’s security forces trying to undercut the planned protests.

Last month, the Court of Cassation upheld the death sentence for 12 people involved in a 2013 protest, including several senior Muslim Brotherhood leaders.