Cairo: Egypt’s top court on Saturday turned down an appeal filed by ousted Islamist president Mohammad Mursi and confirmed a jail 20-year sentence against him in a violence case, state television reported.
The Court of Cassation upheld the same sentence against seven other defendants in the same case linked to the use of violence against opponents of Mursi when he was in power, the broadcaster added.
The rulings are final.
In April 2015, a criminal court sentenced Mursi to 20 years in prison over protester deaths, marking the first verdict issued against him since his ouster in 2013.
Twelve other defendants, including two aides to Mursi, received the same sentence in the case. Five of the accused were tried in absentia.
Mursi and co-defendants were convicted of show of force, the illegal detention of opponents and torturing them.
The case is connected with fatal violence that erupted outside the Ittahdiya presidential palace in Cairo in December 2012 when Mursi was in office.
At the time, anti-Islamist opponents gathered outside the palace in Cairo to protest a decree issued by Mursi expanding his powers beyond judicial oversight.
Mursi’s loyalists attacked the protesters, triggering clashes that resulted in 10 deaths. Mursi’s Muslim Brotherhood said that eight of the dead were among its members.
Mursi was deposed by the army in July 2013 following enormous street protests against his year-long rule.
Last year, another court sentenced Mursi to death after convicting him of involvement in a mass prison escape during Egypt’s 2011 uprising.
The court also handed him a life term on charges of conspiring with foreign organizations in conducting the jailbreak.
The Court of Cassation is due on November 15 to hear Mursi’s appeal against both verdicts.
In June this year, another court gave 40 years in prison to Mursi after convicting him of leaking secret state documents to his ally Qatar when he was in power.
He is being tried in a separate case on charges of insulting the judiciary.
