Egyptian court sentences two Al-Jazeera employees to death

Egyptian police and lawyers attend ousted Islamist President Mohamed Morsi's trial on espionage charges June 18 in Cairo.

By Associated Press

June 18, 2016 5:24 PM PT

Reporting from Cairo — An Egyptian court on Saturday 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 Mohamed Morsi.

Morsi, the top defendant, and two of his aides were sentenced to 25 years in prison for membership in the now-banned Muslim Brotherhood group but were acquitted of espionage, a capital offense.

Morsi and his secretary, Amin Sirafy, each received an additional 15-year sentence on charges of leaking official documents. Sirafy’s daughter, Karima, was also sentenced to 15 years on the same charge.

Morsi, Egypt’s first freely elected leader, was ousted by the military in July 2013 and has already been sentenced to death in another case. That sentence and another two — life and 20 years in prison — are under appeal. The Brotherhood was banned and declared a terrorist organization after his ouster. Khalid Radwan, a producer at a Brotherhood-linked TV channel, received a 15-year prison sentence.

All of Saturday’s verdicts can be appealed. Of the case’s 11 defendants, seven, including Morsi, are in custody.

Amnesty International called for the death sentences to be immediately thrown out and for the “ludicrous charges against the journalists to be dropped.”

The two Al Jazeera employees — identified by the judge as news producer Alaa Omar Mohammed and news editor Ibrahim Mohammed Hilal — were sentenced to death in absentia along with Asmaa Khateib, who worked for Rasd, a media network widely suspected of links to Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood.

Al Jazeera condemned the verdicts, saying they were part of a “ruthless” campaign against freedom of expression, and called on the international community to show solidarity with the journalists.

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