A military criminal court sentenced 148 suspected Muslim Brotherhood members to life in prison in absentia and acquitted ten others in the case of violence that erupted in Minya after the Rabaa sit-in dispersal in 2013.
The court also handed down varying prison sentences to 45 others in the same case. Of those, two senior Brotherhood figures were sentenced to five years in prison, lawyer Khaled al-Komy told Reuters.
The verdict is subject to appeal.
Late Prosecutor General Hisham Barakat had referred the defendants to military trial in March 2015 on charges of sabotage, inciting violence, rioting and calling for protest.
On August 14, 2013, sit-ins organised by former president Mohamed Morsi’s supporters in Rabaa al-Adaweya and Nahda Squares were violently dispersed by security forces almost six weeks after his removal from office
Egypt listed the Brotherhood as a terrorist organisation in December 2013.
The state suspects the Brotherhood of being behind the violent wave of militancy which has targeted security personnel since mid-2013. The Brotherhood denies the accusations.
A law passed in 2014 expanded the jurisdiction of the military courts as it put vital public facilities under the joint protection of the military and police forces thus subjecting any crimes committed against those facilities to the domain of the military judiciary.
According to a report issued in April by Human Rights Watch, 7420 civilians have faced military trials since the law was passed by President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.
