An Egyptian court sentenced former President Mohamed Morsi to life in prison on Tuesday for conspiring with foreign groups, including Palestinian Hamas and sentenced three other Muslim Brotherhood leaders to death.
The general guide of the Muslim Brotherhood Mohamed Badie was also sentenced to life in the same case, which under Egyptian law, means serving 25 years in prison. In total, 17 Muslim Brotherhood members were given life sentence.
Death sentences were also handed to 13 other defendants in absentia. The verdicts can be appealed.
The defendants chanted “Down, down with military rule,” as they were led into the court.
The court last month sought the death penalty for Morsi after he and his fellow defendants, including Brotherhood leader Badie, were convicted of killing and kidnapping policemen, attacking police facilities and breaking out of jail during the uprising against then-president Hosni Mubarak.
The court is seeking, in addition to Morsi, the death sentence for 106 others in the same case, which has drawn drawn criticism from the United States, other Western governments and human rights groups.
The Islamist Morsi was Egypt’s first democratically elected president and was overthrown by the army in 2013 after mass protests against his rule.
He has said the court is not legitimate, describing legal proceedings against him as part of a coup led by former army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in 2013.
Sisi, now president, says the Brotherhood poses a grave threat to national security. The group maintains it is committed to peaceful activism.
Despite U.S. lawmakers’ concerns that Egypt is lagging on democratic reforms, Cairo remains one of Washington’s closest security allies in the region.
Relations cooled after Morsi was overthrown but ties with Sisi have steadily improved.
In late March, U.S. President Barack Obama lifted a hold on a supply of arms to Cairo, authorizing deliveries of U.S. weapons valued at over $1.3 billion.
(With inputs from Reuters)
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