By Jake Lippincott
The trial of Supreme Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood Mohamed Badie was postponed Wednesday. Badie was set to face charges related to an attack on a prison in Port Said; however, the hearing has been delayed to 4 June.
Badie, along with several other low and high ranking members of the Muslim Brotherhood and other secular and Islamist opposition groups, was arrested in the aftermath of the overthrow of Muslim Brotherhood-member and former president Mohamed Morsi.
Badie is facing a plethora of charges ranging from inciting violence to organising protests which blocked roads.
Last week, Badie, along with over 600 others, was sentenced to death after a short trial regarding the violence that has swept Egypt since Morsi’s overthrow. This was the second trial in as many months that sentenced more than 500 political dissidents to death or life in prison. Both trials have received widespread international condemnation for their brevity and apparent lack of due process.
Referencing a trial in March where over 500 people were sentenced to death, the Middle East director at Human Rights Watch Sarah Leah said the Egyptian “court failed to carry out its most fundamental duty to assess the individual guilt of each defendant, violating the most basic fair trial right. These death sentences should be immediately quashed”.
Badie said: “I did not attend this trial, and I along with 1,000 others have been condemned to death.”
