Ex-Egyptian President Faces Death Penalty in First Verdict over Protesters' Death

Egypt’s ex-president Mohammed Morsi faces being sentenced to death on Tuesday on charges of inciting the killing of protestors in the first verdict against him nearly two years after his fall from power.
He also faces the death penalty in two other trials, including one in which he is accused of spying for foreign powers, and escaping from prison during the 2011 anti-Mubarak revolt.
Separate verdicts in those two cases are due on 16 May.
A death sentence on Tuesday against Egypt’s first freely elected president cannot be ruled out, experts say, especially since judges have already passed harsh verdicts against leaders of his blacklisted Muslim Brotherhood.
Morsi was toppled by the then army chief, and now president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on 3 July 2013 after mass street protests against his year-long rule.
The new authorities then launched a sweeping crackdown on his supporters in which more than 1 400 people were killed and thousands jailed.
Hundreds have been sentenced to death after speedy mass trials which the United Nations called “unprecedented in recent history”.
The authorities have also targeted secular and liberal activists who spearheaded the 2011 uprising against long-time autocrat Hosni Mubarak, Morsi’s predecessor.
In November, a court dropped murder charges against Mubarak in his own trial over the deaths of hundreds of protesters in 2011.
Sisi’s regime is widely popular among Egyptians tired of more than four years of political turmoil, but rights groups say it is more repressive than under Mubarak.