Sunday’s verdict is considered a first degree ruling that can be appealed. A life sentence in Egypt carries 25 years in jail.

The Public Prosecution accused Ezzat and other defendants of storming Egyptian prisons and collaborating with Palestinian Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood’s international leadership, and the Lebanese Hezbollah to create chaos and topple the Egyptian state as well as its institutions. He is also charged with receiving military training from Iran’s Revolutionary Guard to launch military attacks in Egypt in the trial that goes back to 2011.

Ezzat, who was arrested in 2020, was first handed a death sentence in absentia in June 2015 in the same case when 20 other defendants received life prison sentences.

Under Egyptian law, in absentia convictions must be re-tried once the defendant is apprehended.

Mahmoud Ezzat was also sentenced in April 2021 to life in prison over charges of murder and terrorism in a case known in the media as the “Guidance Bureau Case.”

He was also sentenced in December to life in prison for collaborating with the Palestinian group Hamas and other foreign organisations and disclosing information pertaining to Egypt’s national security.

The Muslim Brotherhood was designated by the government as a terrorist organisation in Egypt in 2013.