Egypt court orders retrial for Muslim Brotherhood chief Badie

An Egyptian court on Thursday overturned death sentences handed down against Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Badie and 13 others convicted earlier of carrying out alleged acts of violence, a local judicial source has said.

In April, Badie and 13 leading Brotherhood members were sentenced to death for allegedly plotting to "sow chaos" and attack state institutions following the 2013 ouster of elected President Mohamed Morsi, a Brotherhood leader, by the army and its chief of staff who later became the president, Abdelfattah el-Sissi.

Thirty-seven other defendants, including Egyptian-American activist Mohamed Sultan, were likewise slapped with life sentences on similar charges.

On Thursday, Egypt's Court of Cassation suspended the sentences based on appeals filed by the defendants in July and ordered a retrial, the judicial source told Anadolu Agency.

Following Morsi's ouster by the army in July of 2013, hundreds of his supporters were killed when security forces violently dispersed two major sit-in protests in Cairo.