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Egypt Muslim Brotherhood leader and 682 others on trial Egypt Muslim Brotherhood leader and 682 others on trial
(about 1 hour later)
Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohammed Badie and 682 other supporters of ousted President Mohammed Morsi are standing trial in central Egypt.Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohammed Badie and 682 other supporters of ousted President Mohammed Morsi are standing trial in central Egypt.
They face charges including the murder of several policemen during a crackdown on the Islamist movement in August. They face charges relating to an attack on a police station in Minya during a crackdown on the Brotherhood in August.
Most of the defendants are being tried in absentia and officials said Mr Badie was not in court for security reasons.Most of the defendants are being tried in absentia and officials said Mr Badie was not in court for security reasons.
The mass trial in Minya province comes a day after the same court sentenced 528 other Morsi supporters to death. The mass trial in Minya comes a day after the same court sentenced 528 other Morsi supporters to death.
There has been widespread condemnation of the sentences, which were delivered on only the second session of the trial.There has been widespread condemnation of the sentences, which were delivered on only the second session of the trial.
The Egyptian authorities have cracked down on the Brotherhood since the military overthrow Mr Morsi in July. More than 1,000 people have been killed and thousands of others arrested. The UN said the trial had contravened international law.
Mr Badie, the Brotherhood's general guide, is being detained along with dozens of other senior leaders of the Islamist movement. There were also protests in Minya by students at its university and by a crowd in the Abu Hilal district which called for the end of military rule.
The military stepped in after months of street protests against Mr Morsi - Egypt's first democratically-elected president. 'Unprecedented'
Following Mr Morsi's removal from office the Brotherhood set up protest camps in Cairo, at which Mr Badie was a prominent figure. Only 60 people were present at the Minya Criminal Court on Tuesday.
Police eventually dispersed the camps, killing hundreds of protesters, and Mr Badie went into hiding. He was detained in August. The defendants - including Mr Badie and Saad al-Katani, chairman of the Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) - are facing various charges in connection with an attack on a police station in the city of Minya in mid-August, in which no-one was reported killed.
Mr Badie's 38-year-old son Ammar was among those killed in the protests. The attack took place in the immediate aftermath of an operation by security forces to break up two sit-ins in the capital Cairo that left almost 1,000 people dead. The sit-ins were set up by supporters of Mr Morsi after he was overthrown by the military the previous month.
The Brotherhood and human rights groups denounced Monday's death sentences. Several defence lawyers reportedly boycotted Tuesday's trial, while others demanded that the judge, Saed Youssef, recuse himself because he presided over the trial of the 528 people sentenced to death on Monday in connection with an attack on a different police station in Minya.
The verdicts must now go to Egypt's supreme religious authority, the Grand Mufti, for approval or rejection. The preceding trial, in which the vast majority of defendants were also tried in absentia, is reported to have lasted under an hour on Saturday.
Analysts say that although death sentences are often handed down in Egypt, few have been carried out in recent years. The prosecution did not put forward evidence implicating any individual defendant, even though it had compiled significant evidence, and the court prevented defence lawyers from presenting their case or calling witnesses, according to Human Right Watch.
All of those convicted on Monday are expected to appeal. A second session was held on Monday solely to announce the verdict.
The Brotherhood has been declared a terrorist organisation and authorities have punished any public show of support for it. A spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, condemned what he called the "cursory mass trial".
"The astounding number of people sentenced to death in this case is unprecedented in recent history," Rupert Colville told a news conference in Geneva on Tuesday. "The mass imposition of the death penalty after a trial that was rife with procedural irregularities is in breach of international human rights law."
US state department spokeswoman Marie Harf said Washington was "deeply concerned" and "shocked" by a verdict that "sort of defies logic", while the EU's foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton urged the Egyptian authorities to grant defendants "the right to a fair and timely trial".
But Egypt's interim government defended the court, insisting that the sentences had been handed down only "after careful study".
The state-run al-Ahram newspaper reported that the Minya Criminal Court would issue its final verdict on 28 April after Egypt's grand mufti, who under the law must ratify each death sentence before it can be carried out, had passed judgement.
The defendants may then appeal. Legal experts said a higher court would most probably order a retrial or reduce their sentences.
The 1,200 defendants in the two cases in Minya are among more than 16,000 Egyptians arrested over the past eight months, according to figures recently provided by senior interior ministry officials. They include about 3,000 top or mid-level Brotherhood members.