Image copyright AFP Image caption Mohammed Morsi is serving a life sentence for allegedly conspiring to commit terrorist acts

Egypt's highest court of appeal has overturned death sentences against ousted President Mohammed Morsi and five other Muslim Brotherhood leaders.

The Court of Cassation ordered that the six men face a retrial in connection with a mass prison break during the 2011 uprising against Hosni Mubarak.

Twenty-one life sentences for other Brotherhood members were overturned.

Morsi was elected president in 2012 but was removed by the military a year later after protests against his rule.

Although he is no longer at risk of execution, Morsi is serving three lengthy prison sentences relating to other convictions.

Morsi and more than 100 other people were sentenced to death in May 2015 after being convicted of colluding with foreign militants - from the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas and Lebanon's Shia Islamist Hezbollah movement - to organise a mass prison break.

Morsi was being held at Wadi Natroun prison in January 2011 when armed men overcame the guards, freeing thousands of inmates.

He and his co-defendants, including the Brotherhood's general guide Mohammed Badie, were also found guilty of the murder and kidnapping of guards, damaging and setting fire to prison buildings and looting the prison's weapons depot.

In June 2015, a court upheld the death sentence against Morsi and 98 others after consulting Egypt's Grand Mufti, Shawi Allam.

Image copyright AP Image caption Morsi supporters say the trials are attempts to give legal cover to a coup

It was not immediately clear why the Court of Cassation overturned the sentences on Tuesday, but a Brotherhood lawyer said it had applied the law correctly.

"The ruling was expected because [Morsi's conviction] was legally flawed," Abdel Moneim Abdel Maksoud told the Reuters news agency.

Morsi has also been sentenced to life in prison for allegedly conspiring to commit terrorist acts with foreign organisations and to another 40 years for allegedly leaking state secrets and sensitive documents to Qatar.

He was sentenced to 20 years after being convicted of ordering the unlawful detention and torture of opposition protesters during clashes with Brotherhood supporters outside a presidential palace in Cairo in December 2012.

The prosecution of Morsi has taken place amid a wider crackdown on the Brotherhood, which President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi has outlawed and vowed to wipe out. Hundreds of people have been killed and tens of thousands of people imprisoned in the past three years.

Morsi's supporters have said the trials are politically motivated and attempts to give legal cover to a coup. They claim they are based on unreliable witnesses and scant evidence.

Also on Tuesday, the Court of Cassation approved the decision to release Hosni Mubarak's two sons from prison, the state-owned Mena news agency reported.

A lower court ruled in October 2015 that the time Alaa and Gamal Mubarak had spent in temporary detention exceeded the legal limit.

The two men, who were arrested soon after the 2011 uprising, were sentenced along with their father to three years in prison for embezzlement in May 2015.</s>An Egyptian court has struck down a death sentence passed by a lower tribunal against an ousted Islamist president for his part in a mass prison break during the 2011 uprising.

The Court of Cassation’s ruling means Mohamed Morsi will be given a new trial, alongside five other leaders of his now-banned Muslim Brotherhood group, whose death sentences in the same case were also quashed.

The court also struck down life sentences passed in the same case against 21 Brotherhood members.

Last month, a court upheld a 20-year sentence for Morsi on charges arising from the killing of protesters in December 2012. He was ousted by the military in 2013 after just one year in office.</s>CAIRO -- One of Egypt's highest courts overturned a death sentence imposed on Mohammed Morsi, who was the country's first democratically elected president and was ousted in 2013 by the military.

Morsi, who is serving a life sentence in prison for offenses related to espionage and inciting violence, is likely to remain in prison indefinitely.

The annulment of his death sentence -- as well as the death sentences against five other leaders of Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood movement -- suggests the government's reluctance to execute leaders of the Brotherhood, which still maintains some public support after its role in the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak in 2011.

The court also struck down life sentences imposed against 21 Brotherhood members in the same case.

The Brotherhood, which held power for just over a year, has been classified as a terrorist group by the government of President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, and thousands of the group's leaders and members have been jailed or killed or have gone into exile. Even so, observers widely believe that executing top leaders like Morsi could lead to a surge of violence.

The Court of Cassation, an appellate panel that interprets and applies Egyptian law, ordered a retrial of a case in which Morsi was charged with orchestrating a prison break during the chaotic days of the 2011 uprising against Mubarak. The case must be heard again in the courts.

Morsi may again be given the death sentence, said Khaled Nashar, the spokesman for the Ministry of Justice.

"The Court of Cassation's job is to make sure the courts followed the law," Nashar said. "They have to redo the procedures now and then. They can issue whatever verdict they see fit."

But even if Morsi is again sentenced to death, the penalty is unlikely to be carried out, "if only for the reaction it would provoke within Egypt," said H.A. Hellyer, a scholar at the Atlantic Council, a think tank in Washington.

If Morsi were executed, he said, it could undo the uneasy calm that has settled in Egypt since 2013, when el-Sissi, who was then commander of Egypt's armed forces, led an uprising that deposed Morsi amid a popular wave of anger against the rule of the Muslim Brotherhood. Morsi had been democratically elected president the year before.

El-Sissi led a crackdown against the group, including killing at least 800 people, and possibly as many as 1,000, when security forces dispersed a sit-in in Cairo in August 2013.

Executing Morsi risks making him a martyr to millions of Islamists and providing fuel for violence. It was that concern, rather than any desire for reconciliation with the Muslim Brotherhood, that would keep him alive, Hellyer said.

"They are crazy, but they are not that crazy," Hellyer said of the Egyptian authorities. "I don't think they want to execute him, but it doesn't mean he is getting out."

Morsi has been sentenced several times to life in prison. One of those sentences, on charges arising from the killing of protesters outside the presidential palace in December 2012, does not permit parole.

Last year, he was given lengthy prison terms on charges of spying for Qatar; for Hamas, the Islamist group that controls Gaza; and for Hezbollah, the Shiite Lebanese group.

He also is facing trial for another case involving insulting the judiciary. The next hearing is set for December, said Nicholas Piachaud, a researcher on Egyptian affairs at the human-rights group Amnesty International.

The Court of Cassation rules only on matters of law, not matters of fact. Abdel-Monem Abdel-Maqsoud, one of Morsi's lawyers, had argued that the death penalty should be overturned "because the initial trial was deeply flawed."

Abdel-Maqsoud added: "It's not like he is going home today. He already has a final sentence of 20 years in prison. But at least today he gets to take off the red suit."

Prisoners awaiting the death penalty in Egypt wear red jumpsuits; other prisoners wear blue.

Morsi's son, Osama, who is also one of his defense lawyers, welcomed the cancellation of the death sentence. "I am optimistic, but I also don't expect much from politicized judiciary," he said.

He said his father has been in solitary confinement since 2013 and has been banned from any family visits or visits from lawyers.

"He lives in complete isolation," the younger Morsi said of his father.

Information for this article was contributed by Diaa Hadid and Nour Youssef of The New York Times and by staff members of The Associated Press.</s>An Egyptian appeals court today cancelled the death sentence handed out to ousted President Mohamed Morsi and Muslim Brotherhood Supreme Guide Mohammed Badie and ordered a retrial in connection with a mass jail break during the country’s 2011 uprising.

The Court of Cassation also cancelled life sentences for 21 others in the same case.

Five co-defendants, including Badie, who also received death sentences in June 2015, will be retried too.

Morsi and other Brotherhood leaders were sentenced to death in June 2015 for escaping from Wadi al-Natroun prison, damaging and setting fire to prison buildings, murder charges, looting weapons and allowing prisoners to break out of jails during the January 2011 revolution.

Morsi was sentenced to life in prison in two other trials. He was convicted of spying for Iran, Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas.

In another case, Egypt’s first freely elected civilian president was found guilty of stealing documents relating to national security and handing them to Qatar.

Morsi came to power after Egypt’s long-time President Hosni Mubarak was overthrown in 2011.

He was toppled by the current President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi following mass street protests.</s>An Egyptian appeals court has overturned a death sentence handed down against ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsy in one of four trials since his 2013 overthrow, a judicial official said.

The Court of Cassation ordered that Morsy be retried on the charges of taking part in prison breaks and violence against policemen during the 2011 uprising which toppled longtime president Hosni Mubarak.

Five co-defendants, including the supreme guide of the now outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, Mohamed Badie, who also received death sentences in June 2015, will be retried too.

Nearly 100 others who were tried in absentia are unaffected by the appeals ruling.

Last month, the same appeals court upheld a 20-year jail sentence handed down against Morsy in April in a separate trial on charges of ordering the use of deadly force against protesters during his year in power.

Morsy has also been sentenced to life in prison in two other trials.

In one, he was convicted of spying for Iran, Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas.

In the other, he was found guilty of stealing documents relating to national security and handing them over to Qatar, a longstanding supporter of the Brotherhood.

He was toppled by then army chief and now President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi following mass street protests.

The Brotherhood has since been blacklisted and subjected to a crackdown that has killed hundreds of his supporters and jailed thousands.</s>Mursi was sentenced to death in June 2015 in connection with a mass jail break during Egypt's 2011 uprising.

Mursi, democratically elected after the revolution, was overthrown in mid-2013 by then-general Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, now the president, following mass protests against his rule, and immediately arrested.

Tuesday's court ruling means that Mursi is no longer under threat of execution, although he is serving three lengthy jail sentences.

Since toppling Mursi, Sisi has clamped down on dissent. Mass trials have been held for thousands of Muslim Brotherhood supporters, and hundreds have received death sentences or lengthy prison terms.

Abdel-Moneim Abdel-Maksoud, the Brotherhood's lawyer, said the Court of Cassation had applied the law correctly.

"The ruling was expected because (Mursi's conviction) was legally flawed, and we are waiting for the retrial."

Mursi is already serving a 20-year prison sentence for a conviction arising from the killings of protesters during demonstrations in 2012. He has also been sentenced to 40 years on charges of spying for Qatar and to life imprisonment on charges of spying for the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas.

The government deems the Brotherhood, Egypt's oldest opposition movement dating back decades, a terrorist group. The Brotherhood says it is committed to peaceful activism.

Activists and rights groups at home and abroad have said many or all the mass trials have been legally flawed. The Egyptian government says the judiciary is independent and that it never intervenes in its work.</s>The Court of Cassation overturned the May 2015 sentence and ordered a new trial.

Morsy had been sentenced to death over a jailbreak during the chaos of the 2011 Arab Spring protests.

Morsy and the political wing of the Muslim Brotherhood movement were voted into power in 2012 following the uprising, but were ousted in 2013 in a military coup.

He was tried en mass with Mohamed Badie -- the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood -- as well as more than 100 alleged members of the outlawed group, according to state media. Their sentences were also overturned.

Their death sentences were widely criticized as political grandstanding. Morsy and his co-defendants were accused of collaborating with the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas and the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah to break into several prisons across Egypt in January 2011, including one holding Morsy. They were accused of facilitating Morsy's escape, along with 20,000 other prisoners. The Muslim Brotherhood was banned by the Egyptian government after the military seized power and declared it a terrorist organization. While Morsy still faces lengthy prison sentences for convictions in other cases, this was his only death sentence.
Egypt's court of cassation overturns the death sentence on Mohamed Morsi and five other members of the Muslim Brotherhood. The court orders a retrial of six men for their roles in releasing the prisoners from the Wadi el-Natrun prison.