[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

Feb. 11


EGYPT:

Egypt court overturns death sentences of 33 Islamists



An Egyptian appeals court on Feb. 11 overturned death sentences of 33 alleged 
Islamist supporters of ousted president Mohamed Morsi and ordered a retrial, 
state media and their lawyer said.

A lower court in June condemned to death 183 Islamists, including the 33, for 
the alleged murder of 2 policemen and attempted murder of 5 others in the 
southern province of Minya on August 14, 2013.

The defendants were found guilty of committing the murders on the same day that 
police killed hundreds of Morsi backers in Cairo clashes.

The June verdict came after a speedy mass trial and sparked an international 
outcry, with the United Nations saying such mass verdicts were "unprecedented 
in recent history".

On Tuesday, the Court of Cassation overturned the death sentences of the 33 
Islamists and life terms of three others, and ordered their retrial, the 
official MENA news agency and defence lawyer Mohammed Tosson said.

The 36 defendants were in custody and had appealed against the lower court's 
verdict, said Ossama El-Helw, another defence lawyer.

Other co-defendants sentenced to death had been tried in absentia as they are 
on the run, and automatically face a retrial if they surrender.

Among those tried in absentia and sentented to death last June was Mohamed 
Badie, who heads Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood movement, although he was in prison 
at the time of the trial.

Badie will also be retried.

In January, the appeals court ordered a retrial of another group of 152 
Islamists, including 37 sentenced to death, in a similar case in Minya.

Critics accuse President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi's regime of using the judiciary 
as a tool to repress its opponents.

They say Sisi has installed a regime that is more repressive than that of 
longtime president Hosni Mubarak, who was ousted in a 2011 popular uprising.

Since Sisi, who was then army chief, ousted Morsi in July 2013, a government 
crackdown has left more than 1,400 people dead, thousands jailed and hundreds 
sentenced to death.

(source: Agence France-Presse)