Egypt's Supreme Court to re-examine Morsi's sentence appeals

Egypt's Supreme Court will begin re-examining two appeals in October filed by ousted Islamist President Mohamed Morsi, his lawyer and an appeals court official told AFP Thursday.

After a military coup led by then-army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in 2013, Morsi was imprisoned and convicted of several charges, including espionage.

The former president - who became Egypt's first democratically elected leader in June 2012 - was sentenced to death in June 2015 for the prison breaks and attacks on police that took place during the 2011 uprising against President Hosni Mubarak.

He was also sentenced to two decades in prison in April 2015 for a charge related to violence against protesters.

The two convictions will be assessed on October 8 and October 18, Morsi's lawyer Abdel Moneim Abdel Maqsud confirmed.

"It is unclear whether the Court will decide the same day or may adjourn," the lawyer said.

If the appeals are accepted, the two cases in question will be brought before a new tribunal.

Since his detention in July 2013, Mohamed Morsi has been sentenced in four seperate trials. In the former leader's last trial in June case, a Cairo court found him guilty of "stealing secret documents concerning state security and delivering them to Qatar through intermediaries".

This was in addition to a previous espionage conviction which resulted in a life sentence for spying for Iran, the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas and Lebanon's Hizballah.

Amnesty International and several other human rights watchdogs have condemned the trial and sentencing of Morsi, highlighting the flaws in Egypt's justice system and the Sisi regime's treatment of political opponents.

"This appalling outcome is sadly not surprising," Hassiba Hadj Sahroui, Amnesty's Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa, said in response to Morsi's death sentence in June.

"It's just another symptom of how horrendously broken Egypt's justice system has become".