The Cairo Criminal Court ratified Saturday death sentences served to Muslim Brotherhood Supreme Guide Mohamed Badie and 13 others. Badie was facing trial alongside 50 others for managing an "operations room" following the dispersal of the two pro-Mohamed Morsi camps in August 2013. The court handed the other defendants life in prison sentences, many of whom were sentenced in absentia. The defendants were accused of using the operations room to "resist the state and spread chaos." Before reading out the verdict, the judge presiding over the trial, Mohamed Nagi Shehata read out a verdict from the Quran. Badie and the 13 defendants facing death sentences were referred by the same court to the Grand Mufti to issue an opinion on handing them death sentences, last month. At the time the court postponed the verdict against the remaining defendants in this case to April 11. Consulting with the Grand Mufti is a procedural step adopted in all cases which involve death sentences. The Mufti's rulings are not binding, yet it is customary for the court to adopt them. Judge Shehata said in March that there is plenty of evidence to prove that the people referred to the Mufti have supplied the Brotherhood with "funds and weapons". Among the defendants handed a life sentence is hunger-striking detainee Mohamed Soltan, the son of Brotherhood leading figure Salah Soltan. Soltan has been on hunger strike since January 2014 in protest over his detention, maintaining the longest hunger strike among those detained in Egypt. Soltan has repeatedly refused to end his strike and his life is believed to be in danger. Source: Aswat Masriya
