Mursi life sentence quashed

A June 2, 2015 photo shows ousted Egyptian President Muhammad Mursi in the defendants’ cage as he attends his trial at the police academy on the outskirts of Cairo. (AFP)

CAIRO: An Egyptian appeals court Tuesday quashed one of two life sentences handed down to Muhammad Mursi since his 2013 overthrow, in the ex-president’s second appeals victory in a week.

The Court of Cassation, Egypt’s highest appeals court, issued the verdict, Mursi’s lawyer and a judicial official told AFP.
The court ordered a retrial in the case, Mursi’s lawyer Abdel Moneim Abdel Maqsoud told AFP, adding: “The verdict was full of legal flaws.”
The ruling also quashed sentences against 22 others, including three death sentences against Muslim Brotherhood’s deputy head Khairat Al-Shater and other senior officials from the now banned group.
A court had sentenced Mursi to life in June 2015 on charges of spying for Iran, Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and the Palestinian freedom movement Hamas.
The decision was the latest legal victory for the 65-year-old, who has been convicted and sentenced in all cases against him since being removed from office in 2013.
“Most of the trials in which the former president has been convicted are not built on sufficient evidence: the prosecutor relies on security services reports,” University of Cairo political sciences Professor Mustafa Kamel Al-Sayyed told AFP on Tuesday. Mursi was Egypt’s first freely elected leader, taking power after the 2011 uprising that toppled longtime strongman Hosni Mubarak.
But his year in office proved deeply divisive and he was overthrown following mass street protests.
A crackdown on Mursi’s Muslim Brotherhood followed, with the movement blacklisted, hundreds of its supporters killed and thousands jailed or sentenced to death.
Last week, the Court of Cassation also overturned a death sentence handed down against Mursi on charges of taking part in prison breaks and violence against policemen during the 2011 uprising against Mubarak.
That decision enabled Mursi to stop wearing the red uniform reserved for death row prisoners.
Five codefendants, including Brotherhood supreme guide Mohamed Badie, who also received death sentences, are to be retried too in that case. “These decisions tell us that the initial verdicts were political,” said lawyer and human rights activist Gamal Eid.
From next Monday, the court is to start reviewing a second life sentence handed down against Mursi in a separate trial on charges of stealing documents relating to national security and handing them over to Qatar, a longstanding supporter of the Brotherhood.
Last month, it upheld a 20-year jail sentence passed against Mursi on charges of ordering the use of deadly force against protesters during his year in power, which has become the only final verdict against the former president.