An Egypt court on Sunday sentenced Mahmud Ezzat, a senior leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, to life in jail Sunday after he was found guilty of "collaborating with Hamas," a judicial source told French news agency AFP.
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The Muslim Brotherhood is Egypt's oldest and largest Islamist organization, with offshoots throughout the Arab world, including in the Gaza Strip, which is controlled by the Hamas terrorist groups.
Cairo designated the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization in 2013. Since then, Many of the Brotherhood's leaders in Egypt, including late President Mohamed Morsi, have been charged with espionage for Hamas or other foreign entities.
Earlier this year Ezzat, 77, was given a separate life term on terrorism charges in another case.
Sunday's verdict handed down by a Cairo criminal court can be appealed, AFP noted.
Ezzat was arrested in August 2020 in Cairo, after being on the run for several years.
In April 2021, he was sentenced to life imprisonment on terrorism charges in a separate case.
In 2015, Ezzat was sentenced in absentia to death, as well as given life imprisonment, after being found guilty of having supervised the killing of soldiers and government officials.
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He was accused of involvement in the murder of the state prosecutor Hisham Barakat, who died in hospital after a car bomb tore through his convoy in Cairo in 2015.
Egypt softened its stance towards Hamas after accusing it for years of smuggling weapons and insurgent fighters across the Rafah border to Egypt's restive North Sinai.
In May, Egypt negotiated a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel after 11 days of heavy fighting. Cairo often plays the role of mediator between Hamas and Israel, as well as between Hamas and rival Palestinian party Fatah, which controls the West Bank.
i24NEWS contributed to this report.
