Egyptian photojournalist Mahmoud Abu Zeid, also known as Shawkan, looks on behind a fence during his trial in Cairo, Egypt, on Saturday (Reuters photo)

CAIRO — An Egyptian court on Saturday issued death sentences for 75 people, including prominent Islamist leaders, and jailed more than 600 others over a 2013 sit-in which ended with the killing of hundreds of protesters by security forces. The sentencing, which included jail terms for more than 600 others, concluded a mass trial of people accused of murder and inciting violence during the pro-Muslim Brotherhood protest at Rabaa Adawiya square in Cairo. The security forces killed more than 800 people in a matter of hours, in what Human Rights Watch (HRW) concluded "likely amounted to crimes against humanity". “Assuming that they [Shawkan and the other 214 defendants] have not been sentenced in other cases or that they are not held in pre-trial detention in other cases, they should be released,” Amnesty International’s Egypt campaigner, Hussein Baoumi, told the Guardian. In Saturday’s hearing at the vast Tora prison complex south of Cairo, a criminal court sentenced to death by hanging several prominent Islamists including senior Brotherhood leaders Essam al-Erian and Mohamed Beltagi and preacher Safwat Higazi. Leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, Mohammed Badie, who had been in hiding for a week before being arrested in a residential flat in Nasr City, and has already been sentenced to life in connection to terrorism offences. As many as 374 accused, mostly Morsi supporters, were sentenced to 15 years in detention. Cases were dropped against five people who had died while in prison, judicial sources said, without giving further details. Following weeks of protests in 2013 against the ouster of Islamist President Mohamed Mursi by the military — led at the time by Egypt’s current president, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi — security forces violently broke up the demonstrators at Rabaa square. An award-winning photographer who covered the protests, Mahmoud Abu Zeid, was sentenced to five years in jail, but would soon be released because his five years in detention during the trial are counted towards the sentence, judicial sources said. The judge also sentenced 215 defendants, including photojournalist Mahmoud Abu Zeid, known as Shawkan, to five years, causing dozens of defendants in the soundproof cage to rejoice.
A court in Egypt sentences 75 people to death for participating in a pro-Morsi sit-in protest in a Cairo suburb in 2013. The breakup of that protest at Rabaa Square by Egyptian authorities resulted in over 600 deaths. Of the 739 defendants, Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Badie and 46 others are sentenced to life in prison, 374 receive 15-year jail terms, 22 are sentenced to 10 years and 215 people, including Mahmoud Abu Zeid (Shawkan), to five years in jail.