Amnesty International on Saturday called an Egyptian court's decision to seek the death penalty for ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi "a charade based on null and void procedures" and demanded his release or retrial.

On Saturday the Cairo Criminal Court issued a preliminary death sentence to Morsi and 105 other defendants in the trial, which is known in the Egyptian press as the "Natroun jailbreak case".

In the case, the prosecution had charged Morsi and co-defendants with damaging and setting fire to prison buildings, murder, attempted murder, looting prison weapons depots and releasing prisoners.

*This story was edited by Ahram Online