Regional adversaries Qatar and Egypt have renewed their animosity, trading harshly-worded statements over the sentencing to death by a Cairo court of six people, including two Al-Jazeera employees, for allegedly passing Egyptian documents related to national security to Qatar and the Doha-based TV network during the rule of former President Mohammed Morsi.
Relations between Egypt and Qatar have been fraught with tension and suspicion since the ouster by the military in 2013 of the Islamist Morsi, who enjoyed the support of the tiny, but super-rich Gulf nation throughout his one year in office.
Egypt claims that Qatar endangers its national security by supporting Islamist groups, including Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood, which is now banned in Egypt and has been declared a terrorist group by the government.
Cairo also accuses the Doha-based Al-Jazeera network of bias in favor of the Brotherhood and other Islamist groups.
Saturday’s verdicts, which can be appealed, have further enflamed tensions between the two countries.
The case involved a total of 11 defendants, of whom seven, including Morsi, are in custody.
Egypt’s first freely elected leader, Morsi has already been sentenced to death. That death sentence and another two — life and 20 years in prison — are under appeal.
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