WASHINGTON — (CNN) An Egyptian criminal court on Monday handed down a life sentence to the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood along with 35 other members of the outlawed Islamist group, a state-run news agency reported.
Mohamed Badie, the group’s “Supreme Guide,” was among those found guilty of engaging in violent acts in the northeastern governorate of Ismailia in the wake of protests over the 2013 ouster of former Egyptian President Mohamed Morsy, Egypt’s state-run MENA reported.
Morsy, an Islamist, was elected President in June 2012 in the country’s first free elections, following the overthrow of dictator Hosni Mubarak more than a year earlier.
However, a popular uprising against Morsy’s rule broke out in June 2013, and he was deposed in a coup.
The new government outlawed the Muslim Brotherhood, and Badie, Morsy and other members were arrested.
Following Badie’s arrest in August 2013, the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice political party described the charges against him as “trumped up” and “political.”
Badie earlier was sentenced to death and to life in prison by Egyptian courts in other cases, which still may be appealed.
Hundreds of Muslim Brotherhood members have received death sentences since Morsy’s ouster in a government crackdown that Western governments and human rights groups have condemned.
Many of the severe sentences have been overturned on appeal.
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