CAIRO: An Egyptian court on Monday condemned to death Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Badie and 13 other senior members of the banned movement, state media and lawyers said.

The 14 members of the Brotherhood, which was declared a “terrorist organisation” in 2013, were found guilty of “plotting attacks aimed at sowing chaos” across the country, state news agency MENA reported.

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The court found Mr Badie and his co-defendants, who include the Brotherhood’s former spokesman Mahmud Ghazlan, had set up an “operations room” to prepare attacks against the state in the weeks after the army ousted President Mohamed Morsi in July 2013.

But lawyer Ahmad Helmi branded the verdicts as “farcical”.

A total of 51 suspects, including the 14 sentenced to death on Monday, are being tried in the case, 31 of whom are behind bars.

The court said it would announce the verdicts against the other defendants on April 11.

Published in Dawn March 17th , 2015

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