An Egyptian court on Saturday confirmed death sentences for more than 180 Islamists, including Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohammed Badie, after a mass trial that sparked an international outcry.
The court in the central city of Minya initially sentenced 683 people to death, but on Saturday commuted death sentences of four defendants to life in prison and acquitted 496 others, Egyptian prosecutor Abdel Rahim Abdel Malik said.
Since the army ousted former Islamist Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi in July last year, hundreds of his supporters and Badie himself have been sentenced to death in trials roundly criticized by human rights watchdogs.
The 183 whose death sentences were confirmed on Saturday were convicted of involvement in the murder of two policemen and the attempted murder of five others in Minya Province on Aug. 14 last year, the day police killed hundreds of Morsi supporters in Cairo clashes.
They were also found guilty of vandalism, attacking public property, bearing arms and joining illegal organizations, Abdel Malik said.
Lawyers said most of those sentenced to death are on the run.
“The defense lawyers were unable to attend the trial and defend their clients. The court violated the defendants’ rights of defense and gave its decision quickly,” said one, Mohammed Tosson, adding they intended to appeal.
Journalists were barred from attending the trial.
The decision came after the court referred its initial April ruling to the country’s top Islamic academic, as required under Egypt’s legal system.
Defense lawyer Khaled Elkomy said the case was full of “flaws.”
“The judge referred 683 defendants to the grand mufti because he believed that they were guilty ... he then returned and acquitted most of them,” Elkomy said. “This shows that the judge did not even study the case properly.”
In March, the same court reduced to life in prison 492 of 529 death sentences passed on another batch of Morsi supporters.
Outside the court, relatives reacted to the verdict.
“I swear that my brother has nothing to do with politics and the Muslim Brotherhood. He does not even pray,” said Ahmed, 40, of his brother who was sentenced to death.
The mass trial comes amid a crackdown on Morsi’s supporters that has seen more than 1,400 people killed since his ouster and more than 15,000 jailed.
The crackdown has extended to secular-leaning dissidents who supported Morsi’s overthrow but then turned against the military-installed regime that ruled before former Egyptian army chief Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi was elected president last month.
Badie, the Brotherhood’s spiritual guide, was last week handed a death sentence by another court that accused him and 13 others of inciting violence that killed 10 people a Cairo mosque.
In January 2010, Badie was elected the Brotherhood’s eighth chief since its foundation in 1928 after a bitter dispute between ideologically focused conservatives and reformists.
The authorities insisted the initial death sentences were issued only after “careful” consideration and said they were subject to appeal.
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