Cairo: An Egyptian appeals court on Tuesday quashed one of the two life sentences handed down to Mohammad Mursi since his 2013 overthrow, in the Islamist ex-president’s second appeals victory in a week.
Mursi’s lawyer and a judicial source confirmed the verdict from the Court of Cassation, Egypt’s highest judicial authority.
The court ordered a retrial in the case, Mursi’s lawyer Abdul Moneim Abdul Maqsoud told AFP, adding: “The verdict was full of legal flaws.”
The ruling also quashed the sentences against several Muslim Brotherhood officials who stood trial alongside Mursi on charges of spying for Iran and Palestinian militant group Hamas, Abdul Maqsoud said.
The decision was the latest legal victory for the 65-year-old, who has been convicted and sentenced in all cases against him since being removed from office in 2013.
Mursi was Egypt’s first freely elected leader, taking power after the 2011 uprising that toppled longtime strongman Hosni Mubarak.
But his year in power proved deeply divisive and he was overthrown by then-army chief and now President Abdul Fattah Al Sissi following mass street protests.
A crackdown on Mursi’s Muslim Brotherhood followed, with the movement blacklisted, hundreds of its supporters killed and thousands jailed or sentenced to death.
Last week, the Court of Cassation also overturned a death sentence handed down against Mursi on charges of taking part in prison breaks and violence against policemen during the 2011 uprising against Mubarak.
The decision enabled Mursi to stop wearing the red uniform reserved for death row prisoners.
Five co-defendants, including Brotherhood supreme guide Mohammad Badie, who also received death sentences, are to be retried too in that case.
From next Monday, the court is to start reviewing a second life sentence handed down against Mursi in a separate trial on charges of stealing documents relating to national security and handing them over to Qatar, a long-standing supporter of the Brotherhood.
Last month, it upheld a 20-year jail sentence handed down against Mursi on charges of ordering the use of deadly force against protesters during his year in power.
Mursi is being held at a prison near the northern city of Alexandria.
A veteran activist and engineering professor, Mursi emerged as a compromise candidate for the Brotherhood to field in Egypt’s first democratic presidential election in 2012.
He narrowly won the vote but was soon accused of failing to represent all Egyptians and of trampling the ideals of the anti-Mubarak uprising.
His rule was marked by deep divisions in Egyptian society, a crippling economic crisis and often-deadly opposition protests.
Mursi was removed by Al Sissi on July 3, 2013 after millions took to the streets demanding his resignation. Al Sissi became president a year later.
Hundreds were killed in clashes that erupted when security forces dispersed two pro-Mursi protest camps in Cairo in August 2013.
