THE EGYPTIAN OUSTED PRESIDENT MOHAMED MORSI - 20 YEARS SENTENCE

The Leader of the Muslim Brotherhood Mohamed Morsi, has been sentenced to 20 years in prison and without parole on Tuesday 21^st of April 2015. He was charged for the killing of protesters nearly 3 years after he became Egypt’s first freely elected president.

Mohamed and other defendants were sentenced for inciting violence and leading illegal arrest and torture. The charges stemmed from a night of a street blood bath between Mohamed’s supporters and opponents outside the presidential palace in December 2012.

But the ruling illustrated the determination of the government of the current president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, to crush the Muslim Brotherhood, the 87-year-old Islamist movement whose candidates received the most votes in presidential and parliamentary elections in 2011 and 2012. The convictions in the case are likely to deepen the alienation of Mr. Morsi’s supporters, and make the chances of any reconciliation even more remote. Mr. Sisi is the former general who led the military takeover.

Prosecutors had also accused Mr. Morsi of premeditated murder and had sought the death penalty, but the court acquitted him of those charges.

Lawyers for Mr. Morsi may appeal the conviction, although he has maintained that the new military-led government is illegitimate and that he does not recognize the authority of the courts. Mr. Morsi may also face the death penalty in at least three other cases against him.

Mr. Morsi’s rise and fall are a reflection of the political convulsions that have roiled Egypt and other Arab countries in the Middle East over the past four years.

The court rulings against Mr. Morsi have come as the criminal problems of his predecessor and antagonist, Hosni Mubarak, have basically disappeared.

In recent months Egyptian legal rulings have dismissed or overturned all of the convictions that had held Mr. Mubarak and both of his sons in jail or detention.