Egypt slams UN rights chief over ‘unfair trial’ assertion

GENEVA: Egypt on Tuesday voiced outrage at the new UN rights chief's assertions that 75 death sentences confirmed by an Egyptian court at the weekend were based on an "unfair trial" and should be reversed.

The sentences had initially been handed down in July over clashes in 2013 between security forces and supporters of ousted president Mohamed Morsi. Saturday's ruling confirming the sentences prompted Michelle Bachelet to issue a statement less than a week after taking the job as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, in which she decried "the evident disregard of basic rights of the accused".

This, she warned, "places the guilt of all those convicted in serious doubt." She added that if the mass death sentences were carried out it would mark "a gross and irreversible miscarriage of justice."