Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood chief gets new life term

CAIRO, Egypt – Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Badie, who has been sentenced to death, was handed another life term in prison on Saturday, August 22, for an attack on a police station.

A criminal court sentenced Badie, the Islamist movement’s spiritual leader, over the attack in the northeastern city of Port Said on August 16, 2013.

Eighty-eight co-defendants were also handed life terms, which in Egypt is 25 years in jail. Only 18 of them were in court with Badie, however, and the rest were sentenced in absentia.

Twenty-eight others received 10 years in prison and 71 were acquitted.

The attack came two days after a bloody crackdown by security forces in Cairo on supporters of ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi that left hundreds dead in Rabaa al-Adawiya Square.

In June, an Egyptian court upheld death sentences against Morsi and Badie for plotting jailbreaks and attacks on police during the country’s 2011 uprising.

He had already been sentenced to death in April, and has been handed life sentences in 5 other cases.

Morsi, Egypt’s first freely elected president, was ousted in 2013 by then army chief and now President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi after mass street protests against his year of rule.

An ensuing police crackdown targeting his supporters has left hundreds dead and thousands jailed.

Hundreds more have been sentenced to death after speedy trials criticized by the United Nations.

The Muslim Brotherhood, which made major political gains following the 2011 overthrow of longtime Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak, was designated a “terrorist group” in late 2013. – Rappler.com