Alwaght- An Egyptian military court sentenced on Sunday eight opposition activists to death in the trial of 28 supporters of ousted president Mohamed Morsi.
The opposition activists from the Muslim Brotherhood faced trumped up charges of planning attacks on military and police personnel in 2014. In February, the court initially issued a preliminary verdict in the case and then, per Egyptian law, requested the non-binding opinion of the country's Grand Mufti on the death verdicts. The verdict can still be appealed in front of the military court of cassation.
The court also sentenced 12 others to life in prison and six to 15-year sentences. Two of the defendants were acquitted. The defendants were found guilty of illegal possession of weapons and of manufacturing improvised explosive devices. Two of those sentenced to death are at large.
The Muslim Brotherhood was banned and declared a terrorist group after the ouster of Egypt's first democratically elected president Mohamed Morsi in 2013.
Morsi along with 105 others were sentenced to death in May 2015 for a mass prison break in 2011 during the country’s popular uprising that led to the overthrow of long-time dictator Hosni Mubarak. He has already appealed a 20-year prison term handed down to him on April last year on charges of involvement in the arrests and torture of protesters during his one-year rule, which came to an end by a military coup led by the former army chief and current President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi in July 2013.
Meanwhile, Egypt's state news agency says a roadside bomb has killed two police and wounded three conscripts in the northern part of the Sinai Peninsula. An Interior Ministry statement saying that the explosion happened Sunday.
