CAIRO, Egypt
Out of five charges leveled against Egypt’s first freely elected president by Egypt’s post-coup government, one ruling has been overturned, one upheld, two are currently under appeal, and one is awaiting a verdict.
On Tuesday, Egypt’s highest appellate court overturned a death sentence handed down earlier against former President Mohamed Morsi – ousted in a 2013 military coup – and ordered that he be retried.
The case he was sentenced to death for stemmed from his alleged participation in a mass jailbreak during a 2011 popular uprising that forced the nation’s autocratic President Hosni Mubarak to step down after 30 years in power.
Twenty-one other defendants were given life sentences in the same case.
On Oct. 22 an Egyptian court upheld a 20-year jail term for Morsi on charges of committing violence.
The Court of Cassation, Egypt’s highest appellate court, rejected an appeal filed by Morsi and his co-defendants against their jail terms and upheld the verdict.
In April 2015, Morsi and several co-defendants were sentenced to 20 years in prison, each in connection with deadly clashes outside the Ittihadiya presidential palace in eastern Cairo in 2012.
As for the two cases under appeal, in a trial which began in February 2014, Morsi was eventually sentenced in June 2015 with life in prison and death sentences for "conspiring against Egypt" with Palestinian group Hamas and Lebanon’s Hezbollah.
In the second case under appeal, on June 18 an Egyptian court sentenced Morsi to life in prison on charges of spying and leaking state secrets to Qatar.
Morsi, along with 10 co-defendants, was accused by Egypt’s army-backed authorities of spying for Qatar and leaking classified documents to the Gulf statelet during his single year as president.
A case on charges of insulting the judiciary was heard in May 2015. In this single case the judiciary has yet to decide on, Morsi and the other defendants face a variety of charges such as attempting to interfere with the judiciary and declaring opinions when not requested.
Egypt's first freely elected leader, Morsi was ousted by the military in mid-2013 – after only one year in office – following protests against his presidency.
