The court on Saturday delivered the death sentences for their role in a mass jailbreak during the 2011 uprising against Hosni Mubarak.
The EU said the penalty stemmed from a flawed trial and was "cruel and inhumane".
"The court decision to seek the death penalty... was taken at the end of a mass trial that was not in line with Egypt's obligations under international law," the EU's top diplomat Federica Mogherini said in a statement.
Mogherini added that Egypt had to guarantee defendants' rights to a fair trial and to an independent investigation. Her statement said the EU believed the sentence would be revised upon an appeal.
The US expressed "deep concern" after the verdict.
"We have consistently spoken out against the practice of mass trials and sentences, which are conducted in a manner that is inconsistent with Egypt's international obligations and the rule of law," an unnamed state department official said on Sunday.
Noting that they were preliminary sentences, the official added: "We continue to stress the need for due process and individualised judicial processes for all Egyptians in the interests of justice."
The court's verdict on Saturday has already prompted immediate condemnations from Amnesty International and the Turkish president.
Many of those sentenced on Saturday were tried in absentia.
The sentences are subject to legal appeal and the court will pronounce its final decision on June 2, since under Egyptian law, death sentences are referred to the grand mufti, the government's interpreter of Islamic law.
Egypt remains one of Washington's closest security allies in the Middle East. Relations cooled after
Morsi was overthrown by the military nearly two years ago, but ties with Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, his successor, have steadily improved.
In late March, US President Barack Obama lifted a hold on a supply of arms to Cairo, authorising deliveries of US weapons valued at over $1.3bn.
Widespread condemnation
The Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist group to which Morsi belonged before it was banned, slammed Saturday's verdicts, calling them "farcical".
"They're insisting on issuing these verdicts against anyone who participated in the January 25 Revolution ... all of the verdicts fail to meet international standards of law ... they are farcical and will be dismissed as a failing of the coup," Mohamed Soudan, a senior member of the Brotherhood who fled Egypt to the UK after Morsi's overthrow, told Al Jazeera.
Similarly, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan criticised Egypt over the decision and accused the West of hypocrisy, according to the state-run Anatolian news agency.
"While the West is abolishing the death penalty, they are just watching the continuation of death sentences in Egypt. They don't do anything about it," Erdogan was quoted as saying.
Human rights group Amnesty International said the trial was a "charade" and based on "void procedures".
"Condemning Mohamed Morsi to death after more grossly unfair trials shows a complete disregard for human rights ... he was held for months incommunicado without judicial oversight and that he didn't have a lawyer to represent him," the organisation said in a statement.
Meanwhile, Yehia Ghanem, a former managing editor of the Al Ahram newspaper, told Al Jazeera the death sentence was an expected outcome and that the decision of the grand mufti was "not compelling to the judiciary".
Charged with collusion
Morsi, who was overthrown by the army in 2013 amid protests against his government, was spared the death sentence in the first of two trials that concluded on Thursday, in which the court advised death sentences for 16 defendants on espionage charges.
They had been charged with colluding with foreign powers, the Palestinian group Hamas and Iran, to destabilise Egypt.
Last month, an Egypt court sentenced Morsi and 12 other defendants to 20 years in prison for ordering the arrest and torture of protesters in clashes outside the presidential palace in December 2012.
The court acquitted the former president of murder charges that could have seen him face the death penalty.
Source: Al Jazeera and agencies
18/5/15
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U.N. chief deeply concerned at death sentence bid for Egypt's Mursi...
ReplyDeleteU.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon expressed deep concern on Monday at an Egyptian court decision to seek the death penalty for former President Mohamed Mursi, a spokesman for the United Nations said.
"The secretary-general notes with serious concern the sentence of death issued by the Egyptian Criminal Court against former President Mohamed Mursi and 105 others," U.N. spokesman Farhan Haq told reporters.
The ruling against Mursi is not final until June 2. All capital sentences are referred to Egypt's top religious authority, the Grand Mufti, for a non-binding opinion, and are also subject to legal appeal.
"(Ban) understands that the verdict is still subject to an appeal. He will continue to monitor the process very closely," he said, adding that he "underscores the importance of all parties taking steps to promote - and avoiding those that could further undermine - peace, stability and the rule of law."
REUTERS
18/5/15
Egypt plays down cancelation of meeting with President of German parliament...
ReplyDeleteEgypt's foreign ministry denied Tuesday that it had requested a meeting between president of the German Parliament Norbert Lammert and President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi, when he visits Germany in June.
Lammert, a member of the Christian Democratic Union, the same party as Chancellor Angela Merkel, sent a letter to the Egyptian ambassador saying that he has cancelled a meeting with Sisi planned to be held in June, citing human rights abuses and the lack of parliamentary elections in Egypt, AFP reported on Tuesday.
Egyptian Ambassador to Berlin Mohamed Hegazy said in a statement by the Egyptian foreign ministry that the meeting was proposed by the German's and not the Egyptian government.
"The Egyptian side did not ask for nor look forward to a meeting between the two officials," Hegazy announced late Tuesday.
Merkel has not commented on the issue.
The meeting was scheduled for early June in the German parliament.
Meanwhile, Egypt's presidency spokesman Alaa Youssef told Ahram Online that El-Sisi's schedule during his visit to Germany has not been announced yet.
ahram.org.eg
19/5/15
Merkel to meet Egyptian president amid rights criticism...
DeleteGerman Chancellor Angela Merkel still plans to meet Egypt's president when he visits next month, her spokesman said Wednesday, after Germany's parliament speaker called off his talks citing rights violations.
The parliament speaker, Norbert Lammert, said Tuesday that he had written to the Egyptian ambassador in Berlin cancelling his meeting with President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi due to human rights abuses.
"Instead of the long anticipated scheduling of parliament elections, we've been seeing for months a systematic persecution of opposition groups with mass detentions, sentencing to long prison terms and an unfathomable number of death sentences," Lammert, a member of Merkel's conservatives, said in a statement......AFP