CAIRO ( 183 Islamists Sentenced to Death, Including Head of Muslim Brotherhood )

CAIRO – The criminal court of Minya in southern Egypt on Saturday sentenced to death 183 alleged followers of the Muslim Brotherhood, including its leader Mohammed Badie, for disturbances and acts of violence in that province last August.

According to the state news agency MENA, another 496 out of a total 683 accused were pardoned, while four people received life sentences.

Around 120 of the accused are in custody for the premeditated murder of a police officer, while the rest were sentenced for rebellion.

Judicial sources told Efe that the accused who are being tried in absentia face harsher sentences, which can later be revised if they finally show up in court.

The defendants found guilty were charged with homicide, attempted murder, robbery, use of deadly force, mob attacks on public installations, arson and unlicensed possession of firearms.

The court, presided by controversial Judge Said Youssef, handed down the final verdict after receiving the non-binding opinion of Egypt’s Grand Mufti Shawqi Alam, to whom he sent a previous verdict with 683 death sentences last April to seek his guidance, as is mandatory under Egyptian law.

People close to those on trial, waiting at the courthouse door, were astonished by the sentences and confused by the different versions offered by the defendants’ lawyers after the trial, eyewitnesses told Efe.

The incidents go back to last August when a wave of violence shook the village of al-Adwa in Minya province, after the dismantling of camps in the Cairo squares of Rabaa El-Adawiya and Nahda where the Islamists had gathered to protest the military ouster of Mohamed Morsi.