The Cairo Criminal Court submitted the grounds on which former president Mohamed Morsi and five others were handed death sentences. They were given the sentences on charges of participating in storming Egyptian prisons, attacking police facilities, and killing security personnel. The court accused Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood of collaborating with the Palestinian group Hamas, Lebanon's Hezbollah, and a militant member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. This is the first death sentence for the former president, who was ousted by the armed forces in July 2013. The revealed details behind the verdict saw the court justifying the conviction of the 129 defendants in the case, in which they were accused of being responsible for breaking prisons and security facilities. State media reported they were also accused of: killing 32 security personnel and prisoners in Abu Za'abal prison; killing 14 Wadi Natroun prisoners; killing a prisoner in Al-Marg prison; smuggling around 20,000 prisoners from the three prisons; kidnapping four border guard policemen and forcing them into the Gaza Strip. The court said its judges were given proof that the planning for the crimes committed was on the instructions and support of foreign "terrorist organisations". "Although the Brotherhood was an organised and fully established organisation, at the time it didn't have the gear to individually execute the crimes in light of the security grip on it which states positively that foreign entities participated in the plan to execute it," the court said. The court report on the verdict pointed at the Palestinian movement, Hamas, the Lebanese Hezbollah and militants form Sinai's bedouins as participants in "plotting against Egypt and collaborating in executing the criminal scheme".
