Court nixes death sentence for Egypt's Islamist ex-president

CAIRO -- An Egyptian court has struck down a death sentence passed by a lower tribunal against an ousted Islamist president for his part in a mass prison break during the 2011 uprising.

The Court of Cassation’s Tuesday ruling means that Mohammed Morsi would be given a new trial, alongside five other leaders of his now-banned Muslim Brotherhood group, whose death sentences in the same case were also quashed.

The court also struck down life sentences passed in the same case against 21 Brotherhood members.

Last month, a court upheld a 20-year sentence for Morsi on charges arising from the killing of protesters in December 2012. It was the first final verdict against Morsi, who was ousted by the military in 2013 after just one year in office.