Egypt Muslim Brotherhood head faces flood of charges

By Hussein Mahmoud

CAIRO (AA) – Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Badie has been slapped with two death sentences and a total of 160 years in prison for "inciting violence" following the 2013 military coup that ousted Egypt’s first freely elected president, Mohamed Morsi.

Badie was detained by Egyptian authorities in August of 2013, only a few weeks after the military unseated Morsi following protests against his single year in office.

He has since been put on trial for a number of additional counts of "inciting violence".

"Badie was slapped with a total of more than 160 years in jail and two death sentences in nine separate cases," his lawyer, Osama al-Helwi, told Anadolu Agency.

"He is also awaiting verdicts in another 38 cases," he added.

In May 2016, a criminal court handed down a life sentence (at a maximum of 25 years behind bars) against Badie for "acts of violence" committed in the canal city of Ismailia in mid-2013.

More than 104 other defendants were slapped with varying jail sentences in the same case.

The defendants insist the charges against them are politically-motived.

Badie was also slapped with two life sentences for "inciting violence" in Giza and northern Cairo following Morsi’s ouster.

A total of 16 people were sentenced to death and 36 others slapped with life sentences in the two cases.

The top Brotherhood leader was also sentenced to life in jail on charges of involvement in a mass jailbreak in 2011 that followed the ouster of autocratic President Hosni Mubarak amid a popular uprising.

Badie was also slapped with a 10-year jail term by a military court for "inciting violence" in the canal city of Suez following the deadly dispersal of two pro-Morsi protest camps in Cairo in mid-2013.

He was also slapped with a one-year and three-year jail term respectively in two separate cases for allegedly "insulting judicial figures".

In December 2015, an Egyptian court overturned a death sentence handed down against Badie in the so-called "Rabaa operations room" case in which defendants were accused of instructing protesters at a pro-Morsi sit-in in eastern Cairo’s Rabaa al-Adawiya Square to "sow chaos".

The sit-in was violently cleared by Egyptian security forces, killing hundreds of protestors and injuring thousands.

Yet another death sentence handed down against the Muslim Brotherhood leader was overturned by another Egyptian court on charges of inciting violence in the Upper Egyptian village of Al-Adwa.

Another life sentence against Badie was overturned -- and a retrial ordered -- in a case in which he was accused of inciting violence in Giza that allegedly led to the death of seven people.

Badie insists that Morsi, a Brotherhood leader, still represents Egypt’s legitimate president, denouncing his 2013 ouster by the military as a "military coup".

Since Morsi’s overthrow, Egyptian authorities have launched a relentless crackdown on dissent, killing hundreds and arresting thousands of Morsi’s supporters and members of the now-outlawed Muslim Brotherhood.