Egyptian ex-president Mohamed Morsy's death sentence overturned
Egyptian President Mohamed Morsy had been sentenced to death over a jailbreak during the 2011 Arab Spring.
Story highlights
- Court orders new trial over jailbreak
- Death sentences also overturned for Morsy's co-defendants
(CNN)An Egyptian court on Tuesday overturned the death sentence handed to ousted President Mohamed Morsy.
The Court of Cassation overturned the May 2015 sentence and ordered a new trial.
Egyptian ex-president Mohamed Morsy's death sentence overturned
Egyptian President Mohamed Morsy had been sentenced to death over a jailbreak during the 2011 Arab Spring.
Story highlights
- Court orders new trial over jailbreak
- Death sentences also overturned for Morsy's co-defendants
(CNN)An Egyptian court on Tuesday overturned the death sentence handed to ousted President Mohamed Morsy.
The Court of Cassation overturned the May 2015 sentence and ordered a new trial.
Morsy had been sentenced to death over a jailbreak during the chaos of the 2011 Arab Spring protests.
Morsy
and the political wing of the Muslim Brotherhood movement were voted
into power in 2012 following the uprising, but were ousted in 2013 in a
military coup.
He was tried en mass
with Mohamed Badie -- the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood --
as well as more than 100 alleged members of the outlawed group,
according to state media. Their sentences were also overturned.
Their death sentences were widely criticized as political grandstanding.
Morsy
and his co-defendants were accused of collaborating with the
Palestinian Islamist group Hamas and the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah
to break into several prisons across Egypt in January 2011, including
one holding Morsy. They were accused of facilitating Morsy's escape,
along with 20,000 other prisoners.
The
Muslim Brotherhood was banned by the Egyptian government after the
military seized power and declared it a terrorist organization.
While Morsy still faces lengthy prison sentences for convictions in other cases, this was his only death sentence.
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