Prison sentence against Morsi’s nephew overturned

CAIRO – 8 February 2018: Egypt’s Court of Cassation has overturned the one-year prison sentence against a nephew of former Islamist President Mohamed Morsi over charges of “contempt of court” on Thursday.

As per the court’s ruling, a retrial will be held before a different criminal court panel in accordance with the Egyptian Criminal Code.

On March 2, 2016, a Cairo Criminal Court, presided over by Judge Hassan Farid, handed a one-year prison sentence to Morsi’s nephew, Mohamed Said Morsi, for insulting the judiciary when he told the judge “I will judge you and imprison you” during a different trial, where he faced charges of belonging to a “terrorist group” and “storming and vandalizing” Zaqaziq University in 2013.

Morsi’s nephew and two other co-defendants were each given five-year prison sentences during the second trial on February 24, 2015. The court’s verdict was upheld by the Court of Cassation on November 2, 2017.

Morsi’s nephew had been arrested by the security forces in March 2014, when he was a senior student in the Faculty of Law at Zaqaziq University.

The nephew is not the only member of Morsi’s family serving time over charges of terror-related crimes. On January 29, a three-year prison sentence for Morsi’s oldest son, Osama, was reduced to one month in prison over a charge of “possessing an illegal weapon”. Meanwhile, Morsi’s younger son, Abdullah, is serving a term of one year over charges of drug addiction.

Morsi himself had been handed a sentence of life imprisonment (25 years) over charges of spying for Qatar. He was also convicted of inciting violence and murdering protesters outside the presidential palace in a case dubbed the “Ittahadyia Presidential Palace Case” in the media, in which he was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Former President Morsi was overthrown by the military on July 3, 2013 following mass protests calling for the end of his rule days before. Hundreds of Morsi supporters and members of the now-banned Muslim Brotherhood then staged several protests calling for his reinstatement; however, the protests turned violent against police and military personnel following the dispersal of pro-Muslim Brotherhood sit-ins of Rabaa and Nahda squares on August 14, 2013.