Egypt carries out first execution in mass trial of Mohamed Morsi supporters
Ramadan was convicted of murder over the 19-year-old's death
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Your support makes all the difference.Egypt has carried out its first execution today over a murder committed during riots in 2013 amid the overthrowing of the then-President Mohamed Morsi.
Mahmoud Hassan Ramadan was hanged after being convicted of murder, the interior ministry said, in the first death sentence under the current rule of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.
The ministry announced on its Facebook page that Ramadan was found guilty of an incident where 19-year-old Hamada Badr had been thrown from a building in Alexandria.
Ramadan is also said to have had a flag affiliated with al-Qaeda hanging off his clothing.
Security sources have described Ramadan as a radical Islamist who is not officially a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, a group that Morsi had ties to.
Former army chief Sisi supervised the removal of Morsi in July 2013, who was the first democratically-elected president in Egypt following the uprising two years before.
Mass protests have been held opposing Sisi’s rule and he has since implemented a crackdown on Islamist leaders and followers as well as secular political opponents.
Egyptian courts have sentenced hundreds of alleged Brotherhood supporters to death in recent months, many in mass trials condemned by foreign governments and rights groups as violating international law.
Today’s execution comes a month after Egypt's high court upheld a death sentence against Ramadan. Fifty-seven others were sentenced to 15-25 years in the case. Most other death sentences are still under review in a complex system of appeals.
The Brotherhood, which says it is committed to peaceful activism, has accused the military of staging a coup and curbing freedoms won in the 2011 uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak.
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