By Tony Gamal-Gabriel
Cairo: An Egyptian court has sentenced deposed president Mohamed Morsi to death for his role in a mass jailbreak during a 2011 uprising.
Morsi, sitting in a caged dock in the blue uniform of convicts having already been sentenced to 20 years for inciting violence, raised his fists in defiance when the judge read out his verdict on Saturday.
The judge issued the same sentence to more than 100 other defendants including Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Badei, who had already been handed the death penalty in another trial, and his deputy Khairat al-Shater.
Morsi, who rose to the presidency in 2012 as the Brotherhood's compromise candidate after Shater was disqualified, ruled for only a year before mass protests prompted the military to overthrow him in July 2013.
Sentenced to death: Ousted Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi raises his hands as he sits behind glass in a courtroom.Credit: AP
He and dozens of other Islamist leaders were then detained amid a crackdown that left hundreds of his supporters dead.
Many of those sentenced on Saturday were tried in absentia, including prominent Islamic cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who lives in Qatar.
Under Egyptian law, death sentences are passed on to the mufti, the government's interpreter of Islamic law, who plays an advisory role. The defendants can appeal even after the mufti's recommendation.
The court will pronounce its final decision on June 2.
"If he (Morsi) decides that we appeal against the verdict, then we will," defence lawyer Abdel Moneim Abdel Maksoud said.
"If he continues to not recognise this court, then we won't appeal."
Amnesty International lashed out at Saturday's verdict, saying it reflected "the deplorable state of the country's criminal justice system".
"The death penalty has become the favourite tool for the Egyptian authorities to purge the political opposition," Said Boumedouha of Amnesty was quoted as saying in a statement from the London-based rights watchdog.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the verdict was like a return to "ancient Egypt" and he accused the West of "turning a blind eye" to Morsi's overthrow.
Morsi, 64, was spared the death sentence in the first of two trials that concluded on Saturday, in which the court advised death sentences for 16 defendants convicted of espionage.
They had been found guilty of colluding with foreign powers, the Palestinian Hamas and Iran to destabilise Egypt.
The court will pronounce the verdicts for Morsi and the remaining 18 defendants in that trial on June 2.
The court then delivered its verdict in the other case, in which Morsi and 128 defendants were accused of plotting jailbreaks and attacks on police during the uprising that overthrew president Hosni Mubarak in 2011.
More than 100 of them were sentenced to death, along with Morsi.
Many of the defendants are Palestinians alleged to have worked with Hamas in neighbouring Gaza. They were tried in absentia along with a Lebanese Hezbollah commander.
They were alleged to have colluded with Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood to carry out attacks in Egypt in what prosecutors claim was a vast conspiracy.
With this verdict, Morsi and other former members of the opposition have been condemned for violence during the anti-Mubarak uprising, while Mubarak himself has been cleared of charges over the deaths of anti-government protesters during the 18-day revolt that toppled him.
Morsi was in prison when the anti-Mubarak uprising started on January 25, having been rounded up with other Brotherhood leaders a few days earlier.
On January 28, protesters fuelled by police abuses torched their stations across Egypt, prompting thousands of prisoners to escape when the police force all but collapsed.
Since Morsi's overthrow, the police force has largely been rehabilitated in public opinion, with government officials and loyal media blaming the Brotherhood and foreigners for the violence of the anti-Mubarak uprising.
The army chief who overthrew Morsi, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, is now president after he won elections last year.
He has pledged to eradicate the Brotherhood, once the largest political movement in the country.
AFP