Egypt court overturns Morsi death sentence

An Egyptian appeals court on Tuesday overturned a death sentence handed down against ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in one of four trials since his 2013 overthrow. The decision is a first victory for the 65-year-old who has been convicted and sentenced in all cases against him since being toppled by then army chief and now President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi following mass street protests. Since 2013 his Muslim Brotherhood movement has since been blacklisted and subjected to a crackdown that has killed hundreds of his supporters and jailed thousands.
Morsi has been wearing the red uniform reserved for prisoners on death row after being condemned to death in June last year over a 2011 prison break. "He'll take off the red uniform," one of his lawyers, Abdel Moneim Abdel Maqsud, said on Tuesday. Egypt's first freely elected civilian president, Morsi came to power after the 2011 uprising that toppled longtime president Hosni Mubarak.
The Court of Cassation on Tuesday ordered that Morsi be retried on the charges of taking part in prison breaks and violence against policemen during the 2011 revolt, a judicial official said. Five co-defendants, including the supreme guide of the Brotherhood, Mohamed Badie, who also received death sentences in the same case, will be retried too. Nearly 100 others who were tried in absentia are unaffected by the appeals ruling. "The initial verdict was marked by judicial flaws so we were expecting this decision from the Court of Cassation," Abdel Maqsud said.