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AN EGYPTIAN COURT has sentenced 66 people to life in prison, including Muslim Brotherhood chief Mohammed Badie, over an August 2013 attack on a police station in Minya.
Death sentences had been given to 183 people over the deadly attack on the police station in the southern province in which 13 police officers were killed, before a retrial was ordered.
Around 700 people were tried again in this case today, defence lawyer Abdel Moneim Abdel Maqsood told AFP.
Sixty-six of the 700 were sentenced to life imprisonment, which is 25 years in Egypt; 288 were acquitted; six have died since the first trial and the rest were sentenced to between three and 15 years in prison.
Badie (75) was today convicted of inciting his supporters to violence in the Minya case following the ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in July 2013.
Badie, on trial in 35 cases related to the Brotherhood, has been sentenced to death in several of them but the verdicts have been overturned by the court of cassation. He got life sentences in more than five cases.
Hundreds of people have been killed and thousands arrested since the military ousted Morsi.
Uprising
Elected after the 2011 uprising against President Hosni Mubarak, Morsi served as president for a year before being toppled after mass protests against his divisive rule.
His successor was former military chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, whose regime has been accused of a campaign of repression to wipe out dissent.
The government has rejected the allegations, saying its priority is to reform the economy and fight “terrorism”, and accusing its detractors of seeking to harm Egypt’s interests.
On 8 September, a Cairo court sentenced 75 people to death, including other leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood.
The verdicts drew condemnation from human rights groups.
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sure if they say they’re Irish….get the Irish media on/ board they’ll be back in temple bar for christmas
@Frank Dubogovik: That’s a bit silly.
What ever happened to that Irish lad from the same brotherhood, who said he was going to fight and bring them all here.
@Gavin R:
He was treated like a prince on the Late Late…
This guy is a military General having come to power in a military coup backed by the CIA and US military. The courts are meer extensions of that military rule and these trials are a sham.
@Charles Williams: the alternative is not some shining utopia with freedom for all.
The alternative is the aftermath of Iraq and Libya.
The Muslim Brotherhood is not our friend. It’s no rational person, Muslim or otherwise friend.
He is keeping his country together.
@Fiasco99: “brutal dictatorships where the police torture suspects as standard procedure are fine with me because the alternative could be worse”
Jesus wept.
@Fiasco99: that alternative was voted in by democratic election. Just because you, or more importantly, the US Americans don’t like who the Egyptians voted for doesn’t mean they can set up a coup d’etat and irradicate democracy.
@Cormac Ó Braonáin:
Suggest you learn a bit about Morsi’s conduct when in office – ordinary Egyptians turned against him when it became clear that his intention was to destroy the very democracy that got him elected in the first place so that he couldn’t be challenged.
@Cormac Ó Braonáin:
This is a good starting point for you, I’ll let you do the rest for yourself:
https://cihrs.org/one-year-into-morsis-presidencymanifold-abuses-and-systematic-undermining-of-the-rule-of-law/?lang=en
@mattoid: cheers for the link. I’m guessing that article from 5 years ago before the Yanks irradicated democracy and put their puppet in power is the most recent one you’ve read from the very website you posted. Go ‘home’ on that site and you’ll see a picture of Egypt that is a lot worse under el-sisi.
@Cormac Ó Braonáin: horrible governments bent indestructible have been voted into many countries. I’m glad when they fall.
The brotherhood were democratically elected. But there was never going to be another election.
The brotherhood placed the Luxor masacare organiser as the governor of a state. They were more oppressive than Sisi I has been. They were a perverted regeneration that deserves to fall.
I am glad Egypt has avoided the chaos.
So much for free legal aid in Egypt.
@Jams O’ Donnell: the Yanks are in control there now. Irradicated democracy by setting up the coup d’etat. Now controls the border to Gaza and occupied Palestine.
Ah! Well! Only one was a real Bad(d)ie!!!
Its interesting how the democratically elected Brotherhood are the murderers and the coup leaders the lawmakers. If you believe in democracy you have to question this so called trial. If you believe in democracy you must respect the democratic vote. If you believe in demcoracy you must be against foreign interference in Egypt which overthrew the elected government.
We are continually being sold the story that there is only one democracy in the middle east. I wonder why?
have your say