Egypt’s ousted Islamist president Mohammed Morsi was sentenced to 20 years in prison yesterday on charges linked to the killing of protesters in 2012.

The verdict, which can be appealed against, sparked no immediate street protests, reflecting the impact of a heavy security crackdown on any show of dissent — either by Islamists or secular

activists.

Judge Ahmed Youssef issued his verdict as Mr Morsi and other defendants in the case — mostly Muslim Brotherhood leaders — stood in a soundproof glass cage inside a makeshift courtroom at the national police academy.

Seven of the accused were tried in absentia.

In addition to Mr Morsi, 12 Brotherhood leaders and Islamist supporters, including Mohammed el-Beltagy and Essam el-Erian, were also given 20-year prison terms.

Judge Youssef dropped murder charges which could have led to death sentences, and said that the tariffs were linked to the “show of force” and unlawful detention associated with the case.

The case stems from violence outside the presidential palace in December 2012 when Morsi supporters attacked opposition protesters demanding that he call off a referendum on an Islamist-drafted constitution.

Clashes developed into deadly confrontations overnight that killed at least 10 people.

Amnesty International branded the case flawed and full of loopholes, while

denouncing the trial as a “sham.”

“Convicting Mohammed Morsi, despite fundamental flaws in the legal process and what seems to be at best flimsy evidence produced in court under a gag order, utterly undermines this verdict,” said Amnesty Middle East and North Africa deputy director Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui.

She said that Mr Morsi had been questioned without his lawyers present during his detention in an undisclosed location for four months following his ousting in July 2013.

Amnesty said that his legal team had only been able to access case files days before the trial began.

It also documented irregularities, such as where abuses by his supporters were the only evidence documented.

The court ignored what Amnesty said were deaths among Morsi supporters during the same protests.

During yesterday’s hearing, Mr Morsi and his co-defendants raised the four-finger sign symbolising the sit-in at the Rabaah al-Adawiya mosque, where hundreds of Brotherhood supporters were killed by security forces.