An Egyptian court sentenced 183 people to death on Monday after finding them guilty of involvement in an attack on a police station in the town of Kerdasa and killing 11 policemen, a judicial source has said.
The defendants - many of whom are supporters of ousted elected President Mohamed Morsi - were convicted of storming a Kerdasa police station and killing 11 policemen in mid-2013 following Morsi's ouster by the military.
Last December, the court referred the defendants, along with five others, to Egypt's grand mufti, the country's top religious authority, to consider possible death sentences against them.
The mufti's opinion on the matter is not binding on the court, but Egyptian law makes it necessary for judges to seek a religious point of view before any death sentences are handed down.
The court later commuted the death sentence handed down against one convicted minor to ten years behind bars, while acquitting two others. Another two reportedly died in custody.
The attack on the Kerdasa police station in 2013 came shortly after Egyptian security forces violently dispersed two major sit-ins staged by Morsi supporters in Cairo, killing hundreds of protesters in the process.
Morsi, Egypt's first freely elected leader, was ousted by the army last year - and later imprisoned on a raft of criminal charges - following mass rallies against his presidency.
In late 2013, the government designated Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood group a "terrorist organization."
The Brotherhood, for its part, insists it is committed to purely peaceful activism.
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