Egypt mass death sentence

The leader of Egypt’s outlawed Muslim Brotherhood and 682 others went on trial on Tuesday on charges including murder, a day after more than 500 supporters of deposed Islamist president Mohamed Mursi were sentenced to death.

The mass trials and death sentences – the biggest in Egypt’s modern history – are signs that the crackdown on Mursi’s Brotherhood is intensifying ahead of presidential elections that army chief Field Marshal Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is expected to win.

The Brotherhood’s Supreme Guide Mohamed Badie, 70, and the others are being tried in the same court that a day earlier condemned 529 members of the Islamist group to death, a verdict condemned by foreign governments and rights groups.

via Reuters.