The Port Said Criminal Court sentenced 18 supporters of former president Mohamed Morsi to 3 years in prison on Sunday over charges of violence outside Port Said’s Al-Arab Prison in 2013. Two other defendants were sentenced to life in prison in absentia.
Prosecutors found the defendants guilty of rioting outside the prison, attempting to murder police officers, stealing their weapons and freeing prisoners. The violence, which erupted following the bloody dispersal of pro-Morsi sit-ins in Cairo, left five people dead and many police officers wounded.
The Muslim Brotherhood’s top leader, Mohamed Badie, as well as senior group leaders Mohamed al-Beltagy and Safwat Hegazy, are being retried in the same case over charges of inciting violence. They appealed life sentences that had been handed down against them in August.
