An Egyptian court has sentenced the country’s first freely elected leader to death.

Ousted Islamist President Mohammed Morsi was convicted over a mass prison break during the 2011 uprising that eventually brought him to power.

The ruling also applies to 120 other people. It is the latest in a series of mass death sentences handed down since the military overthrew Morsi nearly two years ago.

As is customary in capital punishment cases in Egypt, the judge referred the sentences to the nation’s top Muslim cleric for his non-binding opinion.

Egypt’s judiciary has come under mounting international criticism since Morsi’s ouster as it has handed down harsh mass sentences to Islamists and jailed secular activists for protesting. At the same time, the courts have acquitted or handed light sentences to top officials who served under President Hosni Mubarak, whose nearly 30-year reign was ended by the 2011 Arab Spring-inspired uprising.

In what appears to be the first violent response to today’s ruling, security officials say suspected Islamic militants gunned down three judges and their driver in the northern Sinai Peninsula city of al-Arish.

(AP)