Egyptian court sentences former president to death in 2011 jail break case

  An Egyptian court sentenced former Islamist President Mohamed Mursi to death on Tuesday in a case related to a 2011 mass jail break.

The court had sought the death penalty for Mursi in May and referred its recommendation to Grand Mufti Shawqi Allam, the country's most senior religious authority, a step required by law for death sentences.

The general guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, Mohamed Badie, was also sentenced to death.

The verdicts can be appealed.

A senior member of the Muslim Brotherhood said the trial of Egypt's former president Mohamed Mursi, sentenced to 25 years in prison on Tuesday, had "fallen below all international standards".

"This verdict is a nail in the coffin of democracy in Egypt," Yahya Hamid, a former minister in Mursi's cabinet and head of international relations for the Brotherhood, told a news conference in Istanbul.