An Egyptian court sentenced Monday the Muslim Brotherhood's leader, Mohammed Badie, and 35 other people to life in prison over violent clashes after the army overthrew the country's first democratically elected president, Mohammed Morsi, a judicial official said.

Badie, the Brotherhood's supreme guide, has already been sentenced to death and prison terms in other trials.

The court also sentenced 48 defendants to jail terms ranging from three to 15 years, and acquitted 20 others.

The authorities have arrested thousands of Brotherhood leaders and members, including Morsi, since his ouster by the army in 2013. Hundreds have been sentenced to death, although many have appealed and won retrials.

On Monday, the court convicted Badie and the other defendants of involvement in clashes in the Suez Canal city of Ismailiya that killed three people.

The country was rocked by violence for weeks after Morsi's supporters set up protest camps and demonstrated against his overthrow. The police killed hundreds of his supporters in clashes, including more than 600 on Aug. 14, 2013, as they dispersed a Cairo protest camp.

Morsi, a senior Brotherhood leader, had won the country's first free election in 2012, more than a year after a popular uprising ousted veteran strongman Hosni Mubarak.

Rights groups have criticized Egypt for the mass trials and many death penalties handed down en masse.

The Muslim Brotherhood was the largest political movement in Egypt and was delivering aid, social services and education facilities across the country with a moderate Islamist ideology, seeking to end poverty, foreign intervention, unemployment, social problems and corruption. Since the first day of its establishment in 1928 by Hassan al-Benna, who was killed in 1949, the group never resorted to violence but preferred to remain in legal politics and separated itself from radical groups. The Muslim Brotherhood was familiar with politics, as it was struggling to grab seats in parliament in the Mubarak era. The group entered parliamentary elections and presidential elections. The popularity, reliability and statements brought Muslim Brotherhood-supported Morsi to power after he received a little more than 50 percent of the votes.

After current President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi took power, the international community weakly voiced its concern against the human rights violations, mass death sentences, arbitrary detentions and the suppression of all opposition groups by the el-Sissi administration, despite the repeated warnings of rights groups.

The brotherhood was banned and declared a terrorist group after the military ousted Morsi in 2013.