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Deposed Egyptian President Mursi sentenced to death over mass prison break

Mursi and 130 co-defendants, including Brotherhood leaders Badie, Mohamed Saad El-Katatni, Essam El-Erian, Mohamed El-Beltagy and Safwat Hegazy, were charged in the case.

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Egypt's deposed Islamist president Mohamed Morsi raises his hands from behind the defendant's cage as the judge reads out his verdict sentencing him and more than 100 other defendants to death at the police academy in Cairo on May 16, 2015.
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Deposed Egyptian President Mohammed Mursi, Muslim Brotherhood chief Mohammed Badie and over 100 other Islamists were sentenced to death on Saturday by a court in Cairo over mass prison breaks during the 2011 uprising.

Mursi and 130 co-defendants, including Brotherhood leaders Badie, Mohamed Saad El-Katatni, Essam El-Erian, Mohamed El-Beltagy and Safwat Hegazy, were charged in the case.

Mursi, 63, appeared in the Cairo Criminal Court in a caged dock when the judge read out his verdict. The court sentenced Mursi, Muslim Brotherhood Supreme Guide Badie and 104 Muslim Brotherhood leaders to death in the case.

The former president raised his fists in defiance when the judge read the verdict.

Saturday's capital punishment ruling against Mursi makes him the first president in Egypt's history to face the possibility of death by hanging if court ratifies its initial decision on June 2 or he loses his projected appeal. Many of those sentenced were tried in absentia. They were accused of damaging, setting fire to prison buildings, murder, attempted murder and looting prison weapons depots while allowing prisoners to break out of jails.

The incident took place during the January 2011 revolution when more than 20,000 prisoners escaped from three Egyptian prisons. The uprising had led to the ouster of then Egyptian strongman Hosni Mubarak.

The court also sentenced 16 Muslim Brotherhood leaders including Khyrat el-Shater, the deputy of the Muslim Brotherhood supreme guide, to death in a separate espionage case. Mursi is also an accused in the espionage case along with 35 others but the court will pronounce the verdicts for Mursi and the remaining defendants in that trial at a later date.

In the espionage case, the Islamists are charged with conspiring with foreign powers -- including the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, Lebanon's Hizbollah and Iran's Revolutionary Guard -- to destabilise Egypt. The defendants are also accused of funding terrorism and disclosing national security.

The verdicts in the two cases were referred to the Grand Mufti, who according to the Egyptian law must review all death sentences, however, his decision is not binding.

In April, Mursi was sentenced to 20 years in prison for inciting violence and ordering the arrest and torture of demonstrators during 2012 clashes while he was president.

Mursi is also being tried over insulting the judiciary, spying and handing documents of national security importance to Qatari intelligence through the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera news channel.

Hundreds of members of the Brotherhood, which was banned a few months after Mursi's ouster in 2013, face trials on various criminal charges. 
 

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