Egypt overturns Badie's life sentence 

Egypt’s Court of Cassation yesterday overturned a life sentence previously issued by a lower court against the Muslim Brotherhood’s Supreme Guide, Mohamed Badie, and various prison sentences against 49 other defendants, according to the Anadolu Agency.

The defendants had been handed down various prison sentences by the Port Said Criminal Court in August 2015 in a case in which they were convicted of violent offences and of attempting to launch an assault on a police station in the city on 16 August 2013. The defendants have always denied the charges.

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The Court of Cassation accepted the defendants’ appeal and ordered a retrial, Anadolu reported, citing an anonymous judicial source.

The defendants include prominent Brotherhood member Mohamed Al-Beltagi.

In July 2013, the Egyptian military ousted the country’s first democratically-elected president Mohamed Morsi, who hails from the Muslim Brotherhood group. Ever since, Egyptian security authorities have launched an unprecedented crackdown on the group’s members and sympathisers, and on pro-democracy activists. Egypt also listed the Brotherhood as a terrorist organisation and arrested and tried scores of its members and supporters.