529 Brotherhood supporters sentenced to death in Minya

Minya Criminal Court in its second session sentenced 529 Muslim Brotherhood supporters to death for violence following the dispersal of the Rabea al-Adaweya and Nahda sit-ins last August.

The defendants were handed down the sentences for storming and burning the Matay police station in Minya, killing a police officer, attempting to kill two others, stealing weapons and releasing inmates, state-owned newspaper Al-Ahram reported.

A report by the Associated Press said that more than 400 defendants in the case were tried in absentia, quoting defense lawyer Khaled al-Koumi.

The ruling has drawn condemnation from lawyers and human rights groups, including Amnesty International.

The sentence is awaiting the grand mufti's ratification. The Minya Criminal Court will issue the final verdict on April 28, Al-Ahram reported, following the mufti’s ratification.

Ahmed Shabeeb, a member of the defense team on the case, told Mada Masr that they will appeal the verdict.

He described the ruling as a “judicial fumble that will not be forgiven.”

“We don’t even consider it a ruling,” he told Mada Masr, “it doesn’t carry the truth, it wastes it and conceals it.”

Local media reported that this is the largest number of defendants handed down death penalties in Egypt’s modern history.

Seventeen others were acquitted in the case.

Sherif Agaiby, an activist from Minya, told Mada Masr that there were minor skirmishes outside the court by defendants’ families following the verdict, but that security forces soon dispersed them.

He added, however, that the ruling has sewed panic among residents in Minya, with parents rushing to schools to pick up their children in anticipation of a possible backlash by Muslim Brotherhood supporters.

Earlier state media reported that protesters set fire to a school in Minya, however this report was quickly denied by the Interior Ministry, MENA reported.

On Tuesday the same court will start trying 683 defendants facing similar charges, including Muslim Brotherhood Supreme Guide Mohamed Badie. 

Defense lawyers had filed a case against the presiding judge Said Youssef for turning down a request to postpone the case and allow time to review case documents, which is in violation of the law, state-owned news agency MENA reported.

Shabeeb questioned how the court could reach a verdict in a case with over 4,000-page documents in just 45 minutes, citing several irregularities that occurred during today’s as well as Saturday’s court hearing, including not listening to all witnesses’ testimonies.

On Saturday, when the first hearing for the case took place, Shabeeb said the judge vowed that he would rule on the case in the next session, ignoring requests by the defense team to stand before another court which would have suspended any ruling in the case.

He added that the judge on Saturday had asked security to surround the bench, preventing anyone from approaching it.

Shabeeb lamented that the “those who insult and violate the law are the judiciary themselves.”

Nonetheless, he explained that the defense team can only resort to the law and will appeal the verdict.

"This is the first time in my information in history to have this number of people sentenced to death in the same case, after almost no hearings and with such an imbalance in the number of victims. It's a catastrophe," Gamal Eid, lawyer and executive director of the Arab Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI), told Mada Masr.

"Even though there can be appeals and processes through which the ruling may change, the disaster will remain that there was a judge who issued this ruling after a quick hearing."

Eid called the ruling "political but also a stupid political move," one that could be seen as a "gain" for the Brotherhood. "This will be used to show how Egypt is associated with the lack of any proper judiciary," he claimed.

Eid added that ANHRI has lawyers defending Muslim Brotherhood political prisoners on other cases but not on this one. "We have that many lawyers and countless cases. We can't handle all of them."

Shortly after the verdict, Amnesty International issued a statement describing it as a "grotesque example of the shortcomings and the selective nature of Egypt's justice system.”

“This is injustice writ large and these death sentences must be quashed. Imposing death sentences of this magnitude in a single case makes Egypt surpass most other countries’ use of capital punishment in a year,” said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, Deputy Middle East and North Africa Program Director at Amnesty International.

She added that this was the largest single batch of simultaneous death sentences in recent years, not only in Egypt but in the world.

Sahraoui lamented Egyptian courts’ apparent reluctance to punish security forces for human rights violations, adding they are quick to punish supporters of Morsi.

“While thousands of Morsi's supporters languish in jail, there has not been an adequate investigation into the deaths of hundreds of protesters. Just one police officer is facing a prison sentence, for the deaths of 37 detainees,” she said.

In its statement, Amnesty said that it had repeatedly requested Egypt release figures on death sentences to no avail. However, Amnesty said that at least 109 sentences were handed down in 2013, over 91 in 2012 and at least 123 in 2011.

A wave of violence gripped Minya after former President Mohamed Morsi was forcibly removed from power. Violence then spiked after the August dispersals. The governorate’s churches and Christian residents have repeatedly come under attack, on top of state institutions. 

Hundreds were arrested in the governorate following the dispersals on August 14.