Amnesty International has denounced the death
penalty handed down to former Egyptian President
Mohamed Morsi as "a charade based on null and
void procedures."

“The fact that he was held for months
incommunicado without judicial oversight and that
he didn’t have a lawyer to represent him during
the investigations makes these trials nothing but a
charade based on null and void procedures,”
Deputy Director of Amnesty International’s Middle
East and North Africa Program Said Boumedouha
said on Saturday.

He added that the death sentence “shows a
complete disregard for human rights.”

On Saturday, a court in Egypt sentenced Morsi
along with 105 others to death for a mass prison
break in 2011 during the country’s revolution
against long-time dictator Hosni Mubarak.
Boumedouha called on Egyptian officials to either
release Morsi immediately or retry him in “a
civilian court with full fair-trial guarantees.”

“Any further criminal proceedings must be in line
with Egyptian law and international standards,” he
added, noting that the death penalty has become
the favorite tool for the Egyptian authorities “to
purge the political opposition.”

The death sentences are to be referred to the
Grand Mufti, Egypt’s highest religious authority, for
consultative review and the final decision will be
pronounced on June 2. The Grand Mufti's verdict
is non-binding on the court.

Back in April, Morsi was given a 20-year prison
term in a separate trial on charges of protester
deaths in 2012. The case stemmed from the
deaths and torture of demonstrators outside
Morsi’s presidential palace in December 2012.
In July 2013, Morsi, the country’s first
democratically-elected president, was ousted in a
military coup led by the former head of the armed
forces and the current President Abdel Fattah el-
Sisi.

The Egyptian government has been cracking down
on any opposition since Morsi was ousted,
banning the Muslim Brotherhood movement and
arresting thousands of his supporters.

presstv.com/Detail/2015/05/16/411360/Egypt-mohamed-morsi-death-sentence-amnesty-international

CC:lalasticlala
maclatunji

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