An Egyptian court sentenced 12 supporters of deposed
Islamist president Mohammed Morsi to 17 years in prison on Wednesday for taking
part in a violent student-led protest, state media reported.
The official MENA news agency reported
that the protesters were convicted of attacking the headquarters of the Islamic
al-Azhar institution during the protest.
Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood movement
said on its website all those sentenced were students at al-Azhar's university.
The men were arrested after protesters
in October tried to storm al-Azhar's head office, which supported the
military's overthrow of Morsi.
The men will be allowed to post 64 000
Egyptian pounds ($9 300) bail while they appeal the sentences.
More than 1 000 people, most of them
Morsi's supporters, have been killed in clashes with police since he was
removed in July.
Thousands have been arrested, with many
going to trial.
Fourteen suspected supporters of Morsi
who were on trial for allegedly taking part in separate violent protests were
acquitted on Sunday.
Daily protests
Morsi himself is on trial for alleged
involvement in the killings of opposition protesters outside his palace.
He is to stand trial with 14 other
defendants, including former presidential aides and senior Muslim Brotherhood
members.
Much of the group's leadership,
including its supreme guide Mohamed Badie, are in prison and police continue to
round up dozens of the Islamists each week.
The crackdown has severely restricted
the movement's ability to mobilise, but its supporters still hold daily
protests to demand Morsi be reinstated.
Morsi's lawyer said on Wednesday that
the ousted president has warned that stability would not return to Egypt until
the "coup" that toppled him is reversed.
"Egypt will not regain its
stability except by annulling this coup," Morsi's lawyer Mohamed al-Damati
said the former president had told him.
-AFP
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