Egypt sentences 529 Mursi supporters to death

CAIRO: An Egyptian court on Monday sentenced to death 529 supporters of ousted President Mohammad Mursi in connection with an attack on a police station that killed a policeman, convicting them after only two sessions in a mass trial that raised an outcry from rights activists.

The verdicts are subject to appeal and would likely be overturned, rights lawyers said. But they said the swiftness and harshness of the rulings on such a large scale deepened concerns that Egypt’s courts have been politicised and that due process is being swept away amid a month-long crackdown on Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood supporters since the military removed the president last summer.Monday’s verdicts by a court in the city of Minya were the first such mass trial to issue death sentences.