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Egypt court hands 24 Morsi supporters life sentences

23 June 2014 18:04 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. An Egyptian court on Monday sentenced 24 supporters of deposed Islamist president Mohamed Morsi to life in prison after they were found guilty of allegedly killing a taxi driver in the Nile Delta city of Mansoura during a pro-Morsi protest, the official news agency MENA reported, APA reports quoting Xinhua.

It said the murder happened in December, about six months after Morsi was toppled by the army over mass protests against him and his Muslim Brotherhood.

The report said the driver was killed after the protesters " assaulted him because he opposed their rally and had put a poster of (then-military chief Abdel Fattah) Sisi on his taxi."

Since the ouster of Morsi, Egypt's first freely-elected president, in July last year, thousands of his supporters have been arrested and given jail terms or death sentences.

On Saturday, a court in the southern city of Minya upheld death sentences for 183 supporters of Morsi, including Mohamed Badie, the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood from which Morsi hails.

The Minya court commuted death sentences of four to life imprisonment and acquitted 496 other defendants.

The government has conducted a series of mass trials of his supporters since the Morsi ouster.

Morsi himself faces trials including ordering the killing of protesters and spying for Palestinian Hamas movement and insulting the judiciary.

In late December, Egypt blacklisted the Brotherhood as "a terrorist organization" as it accuses the Islamist group of behind the violence that rocked the country after the Morsi removal.