An Egyptian American citizen has been sentenced to life in prison for supporting the Muslim Brotherhood in the wake of a military coup that ousted the group from power in 2013.
A Cairo criminal court issued the verdict against Ohio native Mohamed Soltan, 27, and 37 other defendants in a televised session Saturday. The judge also confirmed death sentences previously handed down to Soltan’s father, Salah Soltan, and 13 others for “inciting chaos” and planning anti-government demonstrations after the military takeover in July 2013.
Soltan, who has staged a year-long hunger strike to , was charged with “transmitting false news” and funding the pro-Brotherhood sit-in at Cairo’s Rabaa al-Adawiya Square that summer. The verdict can be appealed.
“Without a fair trial or hearing of any evidence presented against him, Mohamed — a brother, a son, a friend, and an advocate for democracy has been sentenced to life in prison,” said a statement posted to the Free Soltan campaign’s Facebook page Saturday.
State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said in a statement that the U.S. government is “deeply disappointed” by the court’s decision and called for Egypt to “redress this verdict.”
Amnesty International called the trial “grossly unfair” and in a letter to President Obama on Friday said the charges against Soltan “should not be considered criminal conduct.”
“The case is important because it is emblematic of how the Egyptian authorities are handling the thousands of cases of people detained” since the coup, said Steven W. Hawkins, executive director of Amnesty International USA.
After massive demonstrations against Islamist leader Mohamed Morsi’s rule, the military his Muslim Brotherhood government in 2013 on the anniversary of his inauguration. Egyptian security forces then led a harsh crackdown on the Brotherhood and its supporters, killing about 1,000 in the dispersal of the protest at Rabaa and arresting tens of thousands of dissidents, rights groups say.
Police arrested Soltan after the Rabaa massacre in August 2013, along with three Egyptian journalists whom the state prosecutor accused of working for the Muslim Brotherhood. The four detainees were then charged along with senior Brotherhood leaders, including Mohamed’s father and Brotherhood Supreme Guide Mohammed Badie, of establishing an “operations room” that would direct demonstrations and attacks against the state to topple the military-backed government. The journalists were also sentenced to life in prison Saturday.
“An already bad situation for the Egyptian news media significantly deteriorates with the sentencing to life in prison of these three journalists,” Sherif Mansour of the Committee to Protect Journalists said in a statement Saturday.
The judge who issued the life sentences, Nagy Shehata, also sentenced three journalists from the Qatar-based Al Jazeera English network to between seven and 10 years in prison last year. They have since been released on bail, and two of the reporters still face a retrial on charges of threatening national security.
Australian Al Jazeera reporter Peter Greste was deported under a new law that allows Egypt’s president to expel foreign nationals convicted in Egyptian courts.
Soltan, who holds Egyptian and American citizenships, could qualify for deportation. But such a decision must be made by President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi, the former military chief who led the overthrow of Morsi and has taken a hard line against critics of his government.
Soltan’s detention has raised questions about the ability of the United States — the provider of $1.3 billion a year in military aid to Egypt — to assist dual nationals ensnared in the country’s deeply flawed penal system, rights groups say. Egyptian courts have doled out mass death sentences and barred defendants from attending their own hearings as part of the state’s effort to quash dissent.
In January 2014, after Soltan had been detained for five months without charge, the former economics student began a hunger strike. Since then, the once-stocky athlete has become pale and emaciated. His health has deteriorated significantly as a result of the hunger strike, Amnesty International and have said, and he has been hospitalized several times since his imprisonment.
He is currently regularly consuming liquids, Amnesty says. Soltan suffers from a blood-clotting disease that could be fatal if not monitored daily, his family says.
Cunningham reported from Baghdad.
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