Egypt court quashes Morsi life sentence
AN Egyptian appeals court yesterday quashed one of two life sentences handed down to Mohamed Morsi since his 2013 overthrow, in the Islamist ex-president’s second appeals victory in a week.
The Court of Cassation, Egypt’s highest appeals court, issued the verdict, Morsi’s lawyer and a judicial official said.
The court ordered a retrial in the case, Morsi’s lawyer Abdel Moneim Abdel Maqsoud said. “The verdict was full of legal flaws.” The ruling also quashed sentences against 22 others, including three death sentences against Muslim Brotherhood’s deputy head Khairat al-Shater and other senior officials from the now banned group.
A court had sentenced Morsi to life in June last year on charges of spying for Iran, Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas.
The decision was the latest legal victory for Morsi, who has been convicted and sentenced in all cases against him since being removed from office.
“Most of the trials in which the former president has been convicted are not built on sufficient evidence: the prosecutor relies on security services reports,” University of Cairo political sciences Professor Mustafa Kamel al-Sayyed said yesterday.
Morsi was Egypt’s first freely elected leader, taking power after the 2011 uprising that toppled longtime strongman Hosni Mubarak.
But his year in office proved deeply divisive and he was overthrown by then-army chief and now President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi following mass street protests.
A crackdown on Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood followed, with the movement blacklisted, hundreds of its supporters killed and thousands jailed or sentenced to death.
The courts’ handling of the cases against Morsi and his supporters, many of whom have been convicted after mass trials lasting just days, has drawn criticism from Western governments, human rights groups and the United Nations, which described the trials as unprecedented in recent history.
Last week, the Court of Cassation also overturned a death sentence handed down against Morsi on charges of taking part in prison breaks and violence against policemen during the 2011 uprising against Mubarak.
Five co-defendants, including Brotherhood supreme guide Mohamed Badie, who also received death sentences, are to be retried too in that case.
“The initial verdicts were political,” lawyer and human rights activist Gamal Eid said.
The court will review a second life sentence Morsi was given in a separate trial on charges of stealing documents relating to national security.