Cairo: An Egyptian court Thursday cleared 141 backers of the deposed Islamist president Mohammad Mursi of violence charges in a rare verdict involving Islamists, according to judicial sources.
The Criminal Court in the southern city of Assiut convicted 26 other defendants in the same case of involvement in attacking several state institutions in Assiut’s town of Al Ghanyam in a wave of protests that erupted after security forces mounted a deadly crackdown on two pro-Mursi camps in Cairo in August of 2013.
Some 102 of the defendants were in custody, according to the sources. The others are still on the run. The rulings can be appealed.
Security forces had cordoned off the court house since the early hours of Thursday, witnesses said. Following the ruling announcement, police tightened security at public institutions in Assiut for fear of violent protests by relatives of the convicted accused, the witnesses added.
Hundreds of Mursi’s supporters and followers of his Muslim Brotherhood group have been detained and put on trial since his ouster by the army in mid-2013. Dozens of leading Islamists, including the group’s head Mohammad Badie, have recently been sentenced to death over involvement in deadly violence.
Last year, Egyptian authorities listed the Brotherhood as a terrorist organization and a Cairo court dissolved the groups’ Freedom and Justice Party in August.
