Brotherhood leader jailed for 25 years

An Egyptian court has sentenced Mohamed Badie, the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, and 14 others to 25 years in jail for murder and inciting violence, Reuters news agency has reported.

The session on Monday had been designated for witness statements to be heard, but the judge issued a verdict before any statements were heard.
The 71-year-old Badie has already been sentenced to life terms in two other separate cases, as well as being handed down a death sentence along with 182 others for inciting violence in which two policemen were killed last August.
The Cairo court jailed him and 14 other Islamist leaders including the Brotherhood’s Essam al-Erian and Mohamed al-Beltagy to life for inciting deadly clashes in July 2013 in a western neighbourhood of the capital.
Life sentence in Egypt amounts to 25 years in jail.
Badie was one of thousands of Brotherhood figures and supporters arrested in a deadly crackdown following the army’s toppling of former president Mohamed Morsi, a senior member of the group.
The case against Badie springs from an attack on a police station near the southern city of Minya on August 14, in which one policeman and one civilian were killed.
The attack was carried out in retaliation after police killed hundreds while dispersing a Cairo sit-in by supporters of Morsi.
The Brotherhood has since been labelled a “terror organisation” by Egyptian authorities. Its supporters have held persistent protests against the military-backed government, often resulting in clashes.
In March, the same court that sentenced Badie to death triggered an international outcry when it handed down the same sentence for 529 alleged Morsi supporters on similar charges.
The judge subsequently upheld 37 of those sentences and commuted the rest to life in prison.
Morsi has been in jail since he was overthrown and is on trial for inciting the killing of opposition protesters in December 2012 outside the presidential palace.
The deposed president also faces charges of espionage in collaboration with the Palestinian movement Hamas.
A government crackdown on Morsi supporters since his removal has left at least 1,400 people dead and 15,000 jailed.