Cairo's court of appeal has set 12 December as the first session of the trial in the case known as 'Rabaa Dispersal', which involves many senior figures of the outlawed group the Muslim Brotherhood.

The case charges 739 defendants, including the Brotherhood's Supreme Guide Mohamed Baide and one if its most prominent members Mohamed El-Beltagy, alongside other senior Brotherhood members.

The court charges the defendants with "unauthorized assembly, use of force, premeditated murder, the possession of weapons and bombs."

After the Brotherhood's Mohamed Morsi was ousted from presidency in July 2013, supporters of the Brotherhood and other Islamist groups held protest sit-ins, the biggest of these at Cairo's Rabaa Al-Adawiya square. Security personnel forcibly dispersed the massive protest camp in August 2013, leaving hundreds dead.

Since Morsi's ouster courts have issued mass death sentences in cases against Brotherhood loyalists. Much of the Muslim Brotherhood senior leadership have been improsoned after being found guilty of a range of violent crimes ranging from espionage to inciting violence. 

The 'Rabaa Dispersal' case is not to be confused with the 'Rabaa Operation Room' case in which 14 men, including senior Brotherhood members, were sentenced to death for setting up an "operation room" at the Rabaa Al-Adawiya protest camp.

The National Council for Human Rights (NCHR) said in March 2014 that a total of 632 people were killed during the dispersal, including eight police officers while 1,492 people were injured and 800 were arrested.