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Death sentence for deposed Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi overturned, retrial ordered | Death sentence for deposed Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi overturned, retrial ordered |
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An Egyptian court has overturned the death sentence agaist the country's deposed former president Mohamed Morsi, ordering a retrial. | An Egyptian court has overturned the death sentence agaist the country's deposed former president Mohamed Morsi, ordering a retrial. |
The Court of Cessation's ruling on Tuesday reverses a lower court's June 2015 decision to sentence him to death for his role in jail breaks during the country's 2011 uprising, which deposed long-standing president Hosni Mubarak. | The Court of Cessation's ruling on Tuesday reverses a lower court's June 2015 decision to sentence him to death for his role in jail breaks during the country's 2011 uprising, which deposed long-standing president Hosni Mubarak. |
Mr Morsi - Egypt's first democratically elected president - was overthrown in a military coup in July 2013, just one year into his four-year term. | |
Mr Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood party - a pan-Arab Islamist movement previously headquarted in Egypt - has since been outlawed, and tens of thousands of supporters arrested and imprisoned. | Mr Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood party - a pan-Arab Islamist movement previously headquarted in Egypt - has since been outlawed, and tens of thousands of supporters arrested and imprisoned. |
Five of his co-defendants, including the Brotherhood's supreme guide Mohamed Badie, will also be re-tried, and 21 more life sentences handed down to Muslim Brotherhood members were struck down. | |
In October an appeals court upheld Mr Morsi's 20-year sentence on charges related to the killing of protesters in December 2012. He still awaits trial on other terrorism and spying related charges. | |
Egypt has been plagued by political upheaval and episodes of violence since the Arab Spring protests of 2011. Human Rights Watch has condemed current leader Abdel Fatah al-Sisi's rule as a "human rights crisis" in which the freedoms of journalists, activists and other dissenters against the government are routinely violated. | |
A recent report from the watchdog claimed Egypt's prisons routinely use torture and degrading treatment which has contributed to prisoners' deaths. |