Egypt’s top appeals court overturned a ruling placing 1,538 people on a government terror list, including former Islamist President Mohamed Mursi, state-run Middle East News Agency reported.
The Court of Cassation sent the case back to a lower court for reconsideration. The ruling was based on an appeal by some of the defendants, many of whom are jailed members of the banned Muslim Brotherhood organization. The list also included Mohammed Aboutrika, a prominent ex-soccer player.
Mursi, Egypt’s first democratically elected civilian president, was ousted following a 2013 military-backed uprising after just a year in office. Since then, Egyptian authorities have killed hundreds of Brotherhood members and jailed thousands more in a campaign that has drawn scathing criticism by international human rights groups.
The crackdown has been led by former army commander Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi, the man who led Mursi’s removal and succeeded him as president in 2014. He was elected to a second term this year.
