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Egypt Sentences 14 to Life for Belonging to Banned Islamists

by Associated Press

   CAIRO, EGYPT --

   An Egyptian court has sentenced 14 people, including an adviser to an
   ousted Islamist president, to life in prison for membership in the
   outlawed Muslim Brotherhood.
   The state-run Al Ahram news website reported on Thursday that out of
   the 14, eight were sentenced in absentia.
   Thursday's verdict by the Cairo Criminal Court included
   15-year-sentences that were handed down to six other defendants while
   one person was sentenced to 10 years. The verdicts can be appealed.
   Along with Brotherhood membership, charges included possessing
   firearms, violating citizens' personal freedoms and disrupting
   constitutional provisions.
   Egypt has cracked down severely on Islamists since the 2013 ouster of
   the country's first freely elected civilian President Mohamed Morsi,
   who hailed from the Brotherhood, following mass protests against what
   was seen as his one-year divisive rule.
   The Brotherhood was designated a "terrorist organization" months after
   Morsi's ouster.