Cairo: Egypt’s toppled Islamist President Mohamed Morsi accused for passing state secrets to Qatar was on Saturday sentenced to life imprisonment by a court. The court also upheld death sentences given to six Muslim Brotherhood members in the same case and awarded life imprisonment (25 years in prison) to two others.
Morsi was given an additional 15 years in prison in the same case, increasing his jail term to 40 years. Last month, the court ordered that the case documents of the six defendants, excluding Morsi, be referred to the Grand Mufti, who according to the Egyptian law must review all death sentences.
However, his decision is not binding.
The six defendants include Ahmed Abdo Ali Afifi, a documentary film producer (who is in jail), Asmaa el-Khateeb reporter in Rassd news network (RNN) (sentenced in absentia), Alaa Omar Mohammed, a Jordanian news producer in Al-Jazeera (sentenced in absentia), and the news editor Ibrahim Mohammed Hilal in Al-Jazeera (sentenced in absentia).
The verdict is not final and can be appealed.
Morsi as well as other defendants have been accused for leaking classified documents to Qatar and selling them to Al-Jazeera channel. The classified documents allegedly include information on general and military intelligence, the armed forces, its armaments and the state’s policy secrets.
Morsi along with Badie, the Supreme Guide and 100 other leaders were sentenced to death in June last year for escaping from prison in 2011.
However, an Egyptian court later quashed the death sentence against Badie. Hundreds of other Muslim Brotherhood members were also sentenced for life in various cases.