CAIRO — An Egyptian court Monday sentenced to death 529 suspected supporters of ousted President Mohammed Morsi over a deadly attack on a police station, capping a swift, two-day mass trial in which defense attorneys were not allowed to present their case.
It was the largest single batch of death sentences in the world in recent years, Amnesty International said.
The U.S. State Department said it “defies logic” that so many people could get a fair trial in just two sessions.
The verdicts by a court in the city of Minya are subject to appeal and are likely to be overturned.
But the outcome raised fears that the rule of law is crumbling in the crackdown waged by the military-backed interim government against Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood.
The government is conducting a series of mass trials of Brotherhood supporters, some with hundreds of defendants.
“It turns the judiciary in Egypt from a tool for achieving justice into an instrument for taking revenge,” said Mohammed Zarie, a Cairo-based human rights lawyer.
Egypt’s Foreign Ministry brushed off the criticism, saying in a statement that the judiciary is “entirely independent and is not influenced in any way by the executive branch of government.”
The government has branded the Brotherhood a terrorist group, arresting some 16,000 people since Morsi’s ouster last summer.
A judicial official involved in Monday’s case told Associated Press that the swift and harsh verdicts were meant as a deterrent.
