An Egyptian military court on Tuesday sentenced Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Badie to 10 years in prison over deadly clashes following the 2013 ouster of president Mohammed Mursi, judicial officials said.Ninety other defendants tried in absentia were sentenced to life terms, which in Egypt, runs to 25 years.
Badie and dozens of others were found guilty of participating in clashes that killed 31 people in the canal city of Suez between August 14 and 16, 2013. The clashes erupted after police brutally broke up two pro-Mursi protest camps in Cairo on August 14 that year.
The charges in the military trial included vandalism, inciting violence, murder, assaulting military personnel and setting fire to armoured personnel carriers and two Coptic churches in Suez.
Badie, the Brotherhood's spiritual guide, was sentenced to 10 years in prison along with fellow Brotherhood leader Mohamed Beltagy and Safwat Hegazy, a pro-Brotherhood Islamist, army and judicial officials said. Forty-one defendants were sentenced to serve between three and seven years behind bars, while 90 others were handed down life sentences.
Badie is facing several trials and has been sentenced to death in a separate case along with Mursi for plotting jailbreaks and attacks on police during the 2011 uprising that ousted president Hosni Mubarak. The Brotherhood chief has also been handed life sentences in five other cases.
| At some point they're just piling on. But not yet... |
| The local rag, Al Ahram, pointed out that 50 were aquitted this time. |