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An Egyptian court has sentenced former president Mohamed Morsi and 19 others to three years in prison on charges of insulting the judiciary.
Morsi, democratically elected after Egypt’s 2011 revolution, was deposed following mass protests and a military coup in July 2013.
He served just one year of a four-year term, while the organisation to which he belonged, the Muslim Brotherhood, has since been outlawed.
A government crackdown on the movement, as well as other groups, has since resulted in tens of thousands of arrests and mass trials.
Yesterday, the Cairo Criminal Court convicted Morsi of defaming the judiciary in a speech he made while in office “with the aim of spreading hate,” according to state television.
The court ordered Morsi to pay one million Egyptian pounds ($56 270) as compensation to a judge Morsi had accused of overseeing fraud in a previous election.
Five other accused, including prominent pro-democracy campaigner Alaa Abdel-Fatah, were ordered to pay a fine of 30 000 Egyptian pounds ($1 700) each.
All the rulings can be appealed.
Since his ouster, Morsi has been tried in several different cases.
He is already serving a 20-year sentence in another case on charges of inciting attacks on protesters in 2012.
In September, the top appeals court upheld a separate 25-year term on charges of harming national security by leaking state documents to Qatar. — Al Jazeera
derick.khumalo