Egypt upholds death penalty for 12 Brotherhood members over Rabaa events

By Diana Shalhoub

CAIRO (AA) – Egypt's court of appeal on Monday upheld the death penalty for 12 members of the Muslim Brotherhood convicted in the Rabaa sit-in case, according to state-run media.

The court upheld the death penalty against Abdel-Rahman el-Bar, Mohamed el-Beltagy, Safwat Hegazy, Osama Yassin, Ahmed Aref, Ihab Wagdy, Muhammad Abd al-Hayy, Mustafa al-Farmawi, Ahmed Farouk, Haitham al-Arabi, Muhammad Zanati, and Abd al-Azim Ibrahim, Middle East News Agency reported.

The court also reduced the sentence of 32 defendants from death to 25 years imprisonment.

Meanwhile, the case Essam el-Erian, a former Muslim Brotherhood leader, was terminated due to his death.

Monday’s ruling was against 45 defendants out of a total of 75 sentenced to death in previous preliminary rulings, human rights lawyer Osama Bayoumi said on Facebook.

In September 2018, the Cairo Criminal Court sentenced 75 defendants to death by hanging, including leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood Mohamed el-Beltagy, Essam el-Erian and Abdel-Rahman el-Bar.

On Aug. 14, 2013, the army and police forces dispersed two sit-in protests of supporters of the late Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi in Cairo, according to local reports.

Hundreds were killed when security forces violently dispersed the pro-Morsi protests in Rabaa al-Adawiya and Giza's al-Nahda squares. Security forces also detained thousands of Morsi supporters in an attempt to quell the unrest that followed the 2013 military coup.

The dispersal came a few weeks after Morsi, Egypt's first freely elected leader, was deposed by the army following demonstrations against his one-year presidency.

*Writing by Ibrahim Mukhtar in Ankara