An Egyptian court on Saturday sentenced former president Mohamed Morsi to three years in jail for insulting the judiciary and harassing its men for hate.
The sentence also included the imprisonment of 19 others for the same period, among them prominent cadres of the Muslim Brotherhood, such as Mohammed al-Katatni, former parliament speaker, Mohamed Beltagy, Sobhi Saleh and Ahmed Abu Baraka.
Former members of parliament include Mahmoud al-Khudairi, Mohammed al-Omda, Issam Sultan, Hamdi al-Fakharani, Mamdouh Ismail, Mohammed Munib and Mustafa al-Najjar. All but the latter are lawyers.
The ruling also included some media professionals such as Abdel Halim Kandil, editor-in-chief of the newspaper Sawt al-Umma, Ahmed Hassan al-Sharqawi, Noureddine Abdelhafiz and Abdel-Rahman Youssef al-Qaradawi.
Mohammed Mohsoub, former minister of parliamentary affairs, and Islamic preacher Wajdi Ghunaim were also included.
The sentence included forcing the convicts to perform for the president of the Judges Club of Egypt in the amount of LE 1 million for temporary civil compensation in the civil suit against them.
He also ordered that former president Mohamed Morsi be required to pay LE1 million in temporary civil compensation for the consultant Ali Al-Nemer in the civil lawsuit.
The Judicial Investigation Commission charged the defendants with insulting and insulting the judiciary and judges by publishing and making speeches on television, radio and electronic social networking sites through expressions of abuse, contempt and hatred of the courts and the judiciary.
Referring to former President Mohamed Morsi, he attributed the dismissal of a public and parliamentary official, Judge Ali Mohamed Ahmed Al-Nimr, to the fact that in his 26 June 2013 presidential speech, he described the various channels as “a false judge and still sitting on the bench” .
The defendants can appeal against this provision.
This is the fourth such judgment against Mohamed Morsi, who was sentenced to 25 years in the case of telephone conversations with Qatar and 20 years in the case known as the events of the Federal Palace.
The first and second sentences are final.
The Egyptian judiciary has already been included in the “list of terrorism” in a final judgment issued on 21 May.
The court repeats Mursi’s case in two cases in which the Court of Cassation overturned their rulings. The first was the “escape from prison” case in which a death sentence was issued.
