Egypt court hands life sentences to 24 Morsi supporters

Cairo, June 23 (IANS) An Egyptian court Monday sentenced 24 supporters of deposed Islamist president Mohamed Morsi to life in prison for violence during a pro-Morsi protest, a media report said.

A taxi driver was killed after the protestors assaulted him when he opposed their rally and had put a poster of (then military chief Abdel Fattah) Sisi on his taxi in the Nile Delta city of Mansoura in December last year, Xinhua cited the official news agency MENA as saying.

Since the ouster of Morsi, Egypt's first freely-elected president, in July last year, thousands of his supporters have been arrested and given jail terms or death sentences.

On Saturday, a court in the southern city of Minya upheld death sentences for 183 supporters of Morsi, including Mohamed Badie, the leader of the Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood.

The Minya court commuted death sentences of four to life imprisonment and acquitted 496 other defendants.

The Egyptian government has conducted a series of mass trials of his supporters since the Morsi ouster.

In December last year, Egypt blacklisted the Brotherhood as 'a terrorist organisation' as it accuses the Islamist group of behind the violence that rocked the country after the Morsi removal.