An Egyptian court has sentenced former President Mohammed Morsi to death in connection with a mass jail break in 2011.
Sitting in a caged dock, Morsi pumped his fists in the air in defiance as the judge read his verdict.
Another 105 members of the Muslim Brotherhood were also given the capital punishment.
The defendants were accused of plotting jailbreaks and attacks on police during the uprising that overthrew longtime President Hosni Mubarak in 2011.
The cases, like any capital sentence, will be referred to Egypt’s top religious authority, the Grand Mufti, for his non-binding opinion before any executions can take place.
Morsi, however, was spared the death sentence by the court on charges that he and his aides passed state secrets to foreign groups, including Palestinians’ Hamas and Lebanon’s Hizbollah, to destabilise Egypt.
But the court sought capital punishment for Brotherhood leader Khairat el-Shater and 15 others for conspiring with foreign militant groups against Egypt.
Muslim Brotherhood official Amr Darrag has condemned the ruling as politically-motivated and called on the international community to take action.
“This is a political verdict and represents a murder crime that is about to be committed, and it should be stopped by the international community,” Mr Darrag told Reuters in Istanbul.
Morsi is already serving a 20-year sentence following his conviction on 21 April on charges linked to the killing of protesters outside a Cairo presidential palace in December 2012.
He became Egypt’s first freely-elected leader in June 2012 in the wake of the uprising that ousted Mubarak. But he was removed from power by the army in 2013 after protests against his presidency.
The verdict is significant because it marks the first time in Egypt’s history that a president has been sentenced to death,
the CNN News reports.
Mohammed Morsi, may definitely appeal in the higher court and the appeal in its context being a lengthy one, any further proceedings in this case may come to an halt regarding the punishment awarded to Mr.Morsi.
The army chief who overthrew Morsi, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, is now president after having won elections last year. He has pledged to eradicate the Brotherhood, once the largest political movement in the country.
