Former Egyptian president, Mohammed Morsi and leader of the banned political party, Muslim Brotherhood, has been sentenced to life imprisonment.
This judgment was passed by an Egyptian court on Saturday, June 18, 2016 following an espionage trial in which six co-defendants were handed death penalties.
Among the six are two Al-Jazeera employees who were accused of passing documents related to national security to Qatar and the Doha-based TV network during the rule of Islamist president Mohammed Morsi.
Morsi, the case’s top defendant, and two of his aides were also sentenced to 25 years in prison, AP reports. Morsi and his secretary, Amin el-Sirafy, received an additional 15-year sentence for a lesser crime. El-Sirafy’s daughter, Karima, was also sentenced to 15 years in prison.
The two Al-Jazeera employees — identified by the judge as news producer Alaa Omar Mohammed and news editor Ibrahim Mohammed Hilal — were sentenced in absentia along with Asmaa al-Khat.
Accordingly, Morsi was handed charges of supplying Qatar with classified documents and was sentenced him to life jail for leading an unlawful organisation.
According to reports, Qatar was a main backer of Mohammed Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood movement while he was in power between 2012 and July 2013.
Morsi was overthrown by the country’s military and immediately detained.
The former president had been sentenced to death in a separate trial for his alleged role in prison breaks and attacks on police stations during the 2011 uprising that overthrew veteran strongman Hosni Mubarak.
Mohammed Morsi has already been sentenced to death in another case. That death sentence and another two — life and 20 years in prison — are under appeal.
All of Saturday’s verdicts can be appealed.
