Ex-Egypt President Mohamed Morsi Jailed For 20 Years | Mohamed Morsi Wiki | Mohamed Morsi Profile

Ex-Egypt President Mohamed Morsi Jailed For 20 Years | Mohamed Morsi Wiki | Mohamed Morsi Profile

Egypt’s former president Mohamed Morsi has been sentenced to 20 years in prison over the killing of demonstrators outside his palace in 2012, the first verdict to be issued against the country’s first freely elected leader. The decision against the Muslim Brotherhood leader, who was removed from power by the army in 2013 after protests against his presidency, was broadcast on state TV.

The verdict and sentence were issued during a brief hearing in a crowded courtroom in a police academy on the outskirts of Cairo. The defendants in the case included several senior leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood. In the same verdict, Morsi was acquitted of a murder charge for which he could have faced the death penalty. 

Twelve other Muslim Brotherhood officials were also jailed for 20 years at the Cairo Criminal Court, which is sitting in a makeshift courtroom at Egypt's national police academy. The defendants stood inside a soundproof glass cage as the verdicts were read out.

Morsi became Egypt's first freely elected leader in June 2012 in the wake of the popular uprising which ousted longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak in 2011. A year later Morsi became the target of mass protests himself and was overthrown by army chief Abdel Fattah al Sisi.

Al Sisi's government has since launched a sweeping crackdown against Morsi's supporters and the Muslim Brotherhood, which has been designated a terrorist group. But his supporters were nonetheless outraged by the jail sentence. “His trial has been a travesty of justice, which has been scripted and controlled by the government and entirely unsupported by evidence,” Amr Darrag, a senior figure from the Muslim Brotherhood and a former minister under Morsi, said in a statement in Istanbul reported by Reuters. “They want to pass a life sentence for democracy in Egypt.