Morsi, 18 co-defendants sentenced to 3 yrs over contempt of court

CAIRO – 30 December 2017: Former President Mohamed Morsi and 18 co-defendants were sentenced to three years in prison on Saturday over charges of contempt of court, stated Cairo Criminal Court.

According to the prosecution investigations, the convicts faced charges of insulting the judges and the judicial authority with their comments and speeches to media outlets; such comments and speech have insulting meanings to the judicial authority.

The investigations stated that Morsi, during his televised presidential speech on June 23, 2013, insulted Judge Ali Mohamed Ahmed al-Nemr, describing him as “an impartial judge”. Nemr was the presiding judge of a Cairo Criminal Court, which acquitted Alaa and Gamal Mubarak, sons of former President Hosni Mubarak, along with former Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq, over charges of corruption in the case known as “The Pilots’ Land” on December 19, 2013. He was also one of the supervisory judges during the 2005 Presidential election.

The trial has started on May 23, 2014, after being referred against Morsi in September 2014.

In November 2016, the Court of Cassation annulled death sentences for Mohamed Morsi and 18 others, as well as the seven years in prison sentence for two other defendants, for conspiring with Hamas; instead, they ordered a retrial.