Egypt court hands 18 Morsi supporters long jail terms over violence

An Egyptian court sentenced on Saturday two supporters of ousted Islamist President Mohamed Morsi to 25 years in jail and 16 others to 15 years over violence charges, official MENA news agency reported.

The convicts, loyalists of Morsi's currently-outlawed Muslim Brotherhood group, have been charged with spreading disorder and joining armed clashes in Cairo's Boulak Aboul-Ela neighborhood that left seven citizens dead in response to the deadly security dispersal of pro-Morsi sit-ins in mid-August 2013.

Cairo Criminal Court also acquitted 86 defendants in the same case on Saturday.

Morsi was removed by the military in July 2013 in response to mass protests against his one-year rule.

Later security crackdown against his loyalists, mostly from the Brotherhood, left about 1,000 of them killed and thousands more arrested while the group was eventually blacklisted as a terrorist organization.

Last week, the Court of Cassation, Egypt's top court, confirmed a 20-year prison sentence against the deposed Islamist president over inciting violence between his supporters and opponents outside a presidential palace in late 2012 that left 10 people dead.

Since Morsi's ouster, Egypt has been facing growing anti-government terrorist attacks that left hundreds of police and military men killed, with a Sinai-based militant group loyal to the Islamic State (IS) regional group claiming responsibility for most of them.

Meanwhile, the security forces killed over 1,000 militants and arrested a similar number of suspects in the chaotic peninsula as part of the country's "war against terrorism" declared by then military-chief and now-President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi following Morsi's ouster. Endit