Egypt court sentences two Morsi supporters to death
An Egyptian court has sentenced two supporters of ousted President Mohamed Morsi to death on charges of involvement in violence during anti-government protests in 2013, Press TV reports.
The Giza Criminal Court handed down the preliminary sentences to Mostafa Hamdy and Mosaab Abdel-Rahman, saying they were guilty of torching the administrative prosecution building in Cairo as well as a cell phone tower in the 6th of October City, a residential and industrial suburb of the Egyptian capital.
The sentences have been sent to Shawki Ibrahim Abdel-Karim Allam, Egypt’s grand mufti, for review. The opinion of the mufti is not binding, but Egyptian law makes it necessary for judges to seek a religious point of view on any death sentence.
The court will deliver its final verdict in the case on October 3.
Hamdy and Abdel-Rahman belong to the Ultras Rabaawy, which is a pro-Morsi youth movement formed in solidarity with the victims of the August 2013 Rabaa massacre.
On August 14, 2013, Egyptian security forces carried out deadly attacks on two protest camps in Cairo, one at al-Nahda Square and a larger one at Rabaa al-Adawiya Square. The two sites had been occupied by the supporters of Morsi for weeks. The Muslim Brotherhood claimed the death toll from the attack on Rabaa Square alone was about 2,600.
Human Rights Watch described the raids as “one of the world’s largest killings of demonstrators in a single day in recent history.”
However, not a single authority in the country has been summoned to courts over the massacre.
Egypt has been struck by violence ever since Morsi, the North African country’s first democratically-elected president, was toppled in a military coup led by Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Egypt’s current president and the then army commander, in July 2013.
Since Morsi’s removal, thousands of anti-government protesters, mostly Brotherhood supporters, have been sentenced to jail. Hundreds of the ex-president’s supporters, including Morsi himself, have also been sentenced to death.
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