An Egyptian court has sentenced six people, including two Al-Jazeera employees, to death for allegedly passing documents related to national security to Qatar and the Doha-based TV network during the rule of Islamist president Mohammed Morsi.
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Egypt’s former president Mohamed Mursi was handed another life sentence on Saturday, after a court found him guilty of espionage and leaking state secrets. In the same ruling, Morsi and other members from the terrorism Muslim Brotherhood received an additional 15 years in intense jail for supplying Qatar with classified documents.
The former president has been sentenced to death in a separate trial for his alleged role in prison breaks and attacks on police stations during the 2011 uprising that overthrew veteran strongman Hosni Mubarak.
The ministry’s director of information, Ahmed Al Rumaih said that although the ruling is not final, it goes against truth and contains misleading claims which are contrary to the policy of the State of Qatar towards all sister countries, including Egypt.
Since Morsi’s ouster and imprisonment, the Egyptian authorities have launched a harsh crackdown on his Muslim Brotherhood group – killing hundreds and jailing tens of thousands – while relations between Cairo and Doha have nosedived.
The Al Jazeera journalists-Ibrahim Helal, former head of news in Arabic, and Alaa Sablan-are not in state custody and were sentenced in absentia.
However, Mr Morsi himself was removed by the army a year later, because of huge protests against a decree seen as giving him despotic power.
Al Jazeera condemned the verdicts, saying they were part of a “ruthless” campaign against freedom of expression, and called on the worldwide community to come together in solidarity with the journalists. Two of the defendants who received the death penalty were reporters for the Al Jazeera network.
Morsi has already been sentenced to death. Others sentenced to death include a documentary producer, an EgyptAir employee and an academic.
The death sentences were sent to the mufti – Egypt’s official interpreter of Islamic law – as his opinion is legally required on death sentences although it is not binding.
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The verdicts drew widespread criticism from rights groups, including Amnesty International, which described the outcome as “appalling”.
