Egypt’s Court of Cassation yesterday upheld the life sentence handed to Mohamed Badie, the leader of the now banned Muslim Brotherhood.
Judicial sources reported that the court also upheld life terms against two other Muslim Brotherhood leaders – Mohamed Beltagy and Safwat Hijazi.
Some 59 others were acquitted over incidents which date back to 2013, when the current President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi carried out a bloody military coup against the country’s first freely elected President Mohamed Morsi, who was the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Badie and the two others were sentenced to life imprisonment over claims they “committed crimes, incited others to commit crimes and carried out violence in the Port Said governorate in August 2013 that led to the killing of five Egyptians.”
At the time, officials linked to the Al-Sisi coup ordered a violent cracked down against the Muslim Brotherhood and its supporters who were protesting in several squares in Cairo before being crushed by the army.
Hundreds were killed and about 60,000 were detained by the army and police.