An Egyptian judge has sentenced 683 alleged Muslim Brotherhood supporters to death, including the group’s supreme guide, Mohamed Badie, and confirmed the death sentences of 37 of 529 alleged supporters previously condemned.Outside the courtroom yesterday, when news of the sentencing broke, families of the accused began to scream and several women fainted.
Mohamed Elmessiry, an Amnesty International researcher monitoring the cases, said they “lacked basic fair trial guarantees”.
The defendants from the first case whose death sentences were not upheld were each sentenced to 25 years in prison.Many of the lawyers for the accused boycotted the hearing, demanding that the judge be recused and calling him a “butcher.”
Lawyer Mohamed Abdel Waheb, who represents 25 of the defendants, said the verdict was handed down in a court session lasting less than five minutes. Previously, he said, the single session in the trial lasted just four hours, during which the judge refused to listen to any arguments from the defence.
Abdel Nasser Hassanien, standing outside the courtroom, said five of his relatives were among those sentenced to die, including his brother, Ahmed Hassenein Abdelatty, 22. “Of the five only one is related to the Muslim Brotherhood, and he didn’t do anything,” he said.
Judge Saeed Youssef first attracted international condemnation and sparked an outcry from human-rights groups after he handed down the initial sentence for the 528 defendants on March 24, following a brief trial marked by irregularities.
Yesterday he reversed 492 of those 529 death sentences, commuting most of them to life in prison.
Amongst those freshly sentenced to death today was Badie, the supreme guide of the Muslim Brotherhood – the group’s most senior leader. He is among 77 of 683 defendants in custody; the remainder were tried in absentia and have an automatic right to a retrial.
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