An Egyptian court has sentenced deposed Islamist president Mohammed Morsi to death for his role in a mass jailbreak during the country's 2011 uprising.
Morsi, sitting in a caged dock in the blue uniform of convicts having already been sentenced to 20 years for inciting violence, raised his fists in defiance when the judge read out his verdict.
The judge issued the same sentence to more than 100 other defendants including Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Badei, who had already been handed the death penalty in another trial, and his deputy Khairat al-Shater.
Morsi, who rose to the presidency in 2012 as the Brotherhood's compromise candidate after Shater was disqualified, ruled for only a year before mass protests prompted the military to overthrow him in July 2013.
He and dozens of other Islamist leaders were then detained amid a crackdown that left hundreds of his supporters dead.
Many of those sentenced on Saturday were tried in absentia, including prominent Islamic cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi who resides in Qatar.
Under Egyptian law, death sentences are passed on to the mufti, the government's interpreter of Islamic law, who plays an advisory role. The defendants can appeal even after the mufti's recommendation.
The court will pronounce its final decision on June 2.
"If he [Morsi] decides that we appeal against the verdict, then we will. If he continues to not recognise this court, then we won't appeal," said defence lawyer Abdel Moneim Abdel Maksoud.
Amnesty condemns 'deplorable justice system'
Amnesty International said the verdict reflected "the deplorable state of the country's criminal justice system".
"The death penalty has become the favourite tool for the Egyptian authorities to purge the political opposition," Said Boumedouha of Amnesty was quoted as saying in a statement.
Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan hit out at the verdict, saying it was like a return to "ancient Egypt" and accused the West of "turning a blind eye" to Morsi's overthrow.
Photo: Egyptian judge Shaban el-Shamy reads out the verdict sentencing deposed president Mohamed Morsi to death. (AFP: Khaled Desouki) Morsi, 64, was spared the death sentence in the first of two trials that concluded on Saturday, in which the court advised death sentences for 16 defendants convicted of espionage.They had been found guilty of colluding with foreign powers, Hamas and Iran, to destabilise Egypt.
The court will pronounce the verdicts for Morsi and the remaining 18 defendants in that trial on June 2.
The court then delivered its verdict in the other case, in which Morsi and 128 defendants were accused of plotting jail breaks and attacks on police during the uprising that overthrew president Hosni Mubarak in 2011.
More than 100 of them were sentenced to death, along with Morsi.
Many of the defendants are Palestinians alleged to have worked with Hamas in neighbouring Gaza. They were tried in absentia along with a Lebanese Hezbollah commander.
They were alleged to have colluded with Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood to carry out attacks in Egypt in what prosecutors allege was a vast conspiracy.
With this verdict, Morsi and other former opposition members have been condemned for violence during the anti-Mubarak uprising, while Mubarak himself has been cleared of charges over the deaths of anti-government protesters during the 18-day revolt that toppled him.
Meanwhile, hours after the ruling, gunmen shot dead two judges, a prosecutor and their driver in Egypt's strife-torn Sinai Peninsula, in the first such attack on the judiciary in the region.
AFP/Reuters
