Egypt death sentences for Islamists revoked

Egypt’s top appeals court yesterday overturned death sentences earlier handed to leading Islamists, including the supreme guide of the nowoutlawed Muslim Brotherhood, Mohammad Badie, and ordered a retrial for them.

The Court of Cassation made the decision for Badie and 11 other members of the Islamist groups, who were convicted of attempting to spread chaos in Egypt in April. The convicts also include the Brotherhood’s leading members Salah Sultan, Omar Malek and Saad Al Hussaini.

The court also ordered a retrial for 26 other defendants, who were sentenced to life imprisonment in the same case. No date has been set for the retrial.

The retrial decision does not cover two other defendants, who were tried and sentenced to death in absentia in the same case.

Under Egyptian law, convicts must be present when their appeals are heard.

Deadly dispersal

The case is related to violent protests that erupted in several parts of Egypt in the wake of security forces’ deadly dispersal in August 2013 of protesters loyal to then president Mohammad Mursi. Badie, 72, has already been handed down several sentences including death and life verdicts in other cases.

Yesterday’s ruling came a day after the top court upheld jail sentences against six other Islamists marking the first final such ruling.

In October 2014, the Cairo Criminal Court sentenced the six to imprisonment terms ranging from three to 15 years after convicting them of torturing a lawyer.