A Cairo criminal court ordered on Monday the release of two senior Al-Gamaa Al-Islamiya leaders after more than two years in detention over charges of joining a banned group.

The two leaders, Safwat Abdel-Ghany and Alaa Abu El-Nasr, members of the group and leaders of its political arm the Building and Development Party, have been in detention since July 2014 over charges related to joining the now-banned pro-Morsi National Alliance to Support Legitimacy.

A court had ordered their release last April, but prosecutors appealed the decision.

Al-Gammaa Al-Islamiya, an Islamist militant group renounced the use of violence against the government in the 1990's and formed a political party after the 2011 revolution,

The group played a key role in the pro-Mohamed Morsi National Alliance to Support Legitimacy in 2013-2014.

The alliance was banned in October 2014 and many of its leading figures were arrested on charges of inciting violence.

Since Morsi's ousting n 2013 and the dispersal of the pro-Morsi Rabaa Al-Adawiya protest camp by Egyptian security forces in August 2013, thousands of Muslim Brotherhood members and loyalists have been arrested and charged with instigating or committing acts violence.

Over the past few months, several leading Morsi supporters have been acquitted by Egyptian courts, including former Morsi manpower minister Khaled El-Azhary.