Muslim Brotherhood member Mohamed Morsi has finally gotten some of his due, avoiding the death sentence but getting a full 20 years in prison for inciting his supporters to kill demonstrators outside his palace:
GUARDIAN – Egypt’s former president Mohamed Morsi has been sentenced to 20 years in prison over the killing of demonstrators outside his palace in 2012, the first verdict to be issued against the country’s first freely elected leader.
Morsi, who was elected president the year after Egypt’s 2011 revolution, was removed by the military in 2013 after an acrimonious year in office. Tuesday’s verdict stemmed from deaths during violent clashes between Muslim Brotherhood supporters and protesters who opposed Morsi in December 2012.
The verdict and sentence were issued during a brief hearing in a crowded courtroom in a police academy on the outskirts of Cairo. The defendants included several senior leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood.
In the same verdict, Morsi and 14 co-defendants were acquitted of a murder charge for which they could have faced the death penalty. The former president was convicted of inciting his supporters to use violence and detain and torture opposition demonstrators.
His supporters were outraged. “His trial has been a travesty of justice, which has been scripted and controlled by the government and entirely unsupported by evidence,” Amr Darrag, a senior figure from the Muslim Brotherhood and a former minister under Morsi, said in a statement in Istanbul reported by Reuters. “They want to pass a life sentence for democracy in Egypt.”
But this 20 year sentence is just the beginning:
An appeal against Tuesday’s verdict is expected. Morsi is also on trial separately for escaping from prison during the 2011 popular uprising, espionage and conspiring to commit terrorism. Verdicts in two of the cases are expected in May.
Morsi has many supporters, including the current president of Turkey, Erdogan. I’m sure they will have something to say about this and it won’t be good.