Former Egyptian president Mursi jailed for 20years

CAIRO (Reuters) - Muslim Brotherhood leader
Mohamed Mursi was sentenced to 20 years in
prison on charges arising from the killing of
protesters on Tuesday, nearly three years after he
became Egypt's first freely elected president.

Mursi stood in a cage in court as judge Ahmed
Sabry Youssef read out the ruling against him
and 12 other Brotherhood members, including
senior figures Mohamed el-Beltagy and Essam el-
Erian. The sentencing was broadcast live on state
television.
The men were convicted on charges of violence,
kidnapping and torture stemming from the killing
of protesters during demonstrations in 2012. They
were acquitted of murder charges, which carry the
death sentence.
Displaying a four-finger salute symbolizing
resistance to the state's crackdown on Islamists,
defendants chanted "God is Greatest" after the
verdict was read.
The ruling is the first against Mursi, who says he
is determined to reverse what he calls a military
coup in 2013 staged by then army chief, now
president, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.
"His trial has been a travesty of justice, which has
been scripted and controlled by the government
and entirely unsupported by evidence," Amr
Darrag, a former minister under Mursi, said in a
statement from Istanbul.
A lawyer for some of the defendants said they
would appeal.
After toppling Mursi following mass protests
against his rule, Sisi proceeded to crush the
Brotherhood, which he says is part of a terrorist
network that poses an existential threat to the
Arab and Western worlds.
The Brotherhood says it is a peaceful movement
that will return to office through people power,
even though demonstrations have fallen to a
trickle.
DEEP STATE
Egypt's deep state apparatus -- the Interior
Ministry, intelligence services and army -- now
appears to have a tighter grip than ever on the
biggest Arab state.
While Mursi has become far less relevant, even
within the Brotherhood, Sisi became president
after elections last year, winning over many
Egyptians who overlooked widespread allegations
of human rights abuses for the sake of stability.
Western powers that called for democracy
declined to use leverage against Sisi, the latest
military man to seize power.
Mursi, who rose through the ranks of the
Brotherhood before winning the presidency in
2012, was a polarizing figure during his troubled
year in office, which followed the fall of veteran
autocrat Hosni Mubarak in 2011.
His policies alienated secular and liberal
Egyptians, who feared that the Brotherhood -- the
main opposition to Mubarak for decades and
popular among many Egyptians for its charity
work -- was abusing power.Protests erupted in
late 2012 after Mursi issued a decree expanding
presidential powers -- a move his supporters say
was necessary to prevent a judiciary still packed
with Mubarak appointees from derailing a fragile
political transition.Those demonstrations led to
the deaths of protesters, for which prosecutors
argued that Mursi and other Brotherhood leaders
were responsible. Mursi and his co-defendants
denied the charges.
Reda Sanoussi, the brother of one of the victims,
was dissatisfied with the dismissal of the murder
charges against Mursi.
"I want to enter the cage and pull out his
intestines," he told Reuters.