Egypt sentences Muslim Brotherhood leader to life in prison

Court finds Mahmoud Ezzat, acting supreme guide of the country’s oldest Islamist organisation, guilty of ‘terror’ acts.

A senior leader of Egypt’s outlawed Muslim Brotherhood group has been convicted on “terror” charges and sentenced to life in prison, state media has reported. According to the state-owned Middle East News Agency, a Cairo court on Thursday found Mahmoud Ezzat, the acting supreme guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, guilty of “terror acts” that followed the 2013 military overthrow of Egypt’s first democratically elected president, Mohamed Morsi. Ezzat was sentenced on charges of inciting violence and supplying firearms during clashes outside the Brotherhood’s headquarters between its supporters and opponents in 2013, Reuters news agency reported, citing a judicial source. Other senior members of the Brotherhood, the country’s oldest Islamist organisation, have been sentenced to life in prison in the same case.