An Alexandria misdemeanours court on Wednesday sentenced five Morsi supporters to 18 years in jail and a fine of LE 135,000 for “illegal protesting” and “acts of violence”.

The prosecution had also accused the five defendants of “joining a banned group” and "using force to intimidate the public.”

The five convicted pro-Morsi supporters were arrested during the dispersal of a protest in Alexandria last 29 August. 

They included university professor Mohamed Tarek, an eye witness of the deadly dispersal of the pro-Morsi Rabaa sit-in in August 2013, whose testimony was included in a damning August 2014 Human Rights Watch’s (HRW) report about the events. 

In its 188-page investigation, the New York-based human rights organisation said that Egyptian security forces had used excessive force to disband the sit-in, and described it as “a likely crime against humanity” in which at least 817 killed.

The Egyptian authorities slammed the HRW report and denied its findings. 

According to Egypt’s official National Human Rights Council’s own report from March 2014, up to 632 people were killed and 1,492 others were injured in the dispersal of the Rabaa sit-in.