JUDGE Said Youssef sentenced 180 Muslim Brotherhood supporters, including its spiritual leader Mohammed Badie, to death this weekend in the latest mass trial following last year’s removal of Islamist president Mohammed Morsi.

The ruling by the southern Minya Criminal Court is the largest confirmed mass death sentence to be handed down in Egypt in recent memory.

It was the second death sentence imposed on the Brotherhood’s supreme guide Mohammed Badie since the crackdown against his group began.

The court acquitted more than 400 others in the case that stemmed from an attack on a police station in el-Adwa near the southern city of Minya on August 14, killing one police officer and one civilian.

Similar attacks swept across Egypt following a government crackdown on Cairo sit-ins supporting the toppled president, whose removal had been demanded by tens of millions of demonstrators.

Charges in the case ranged from murder, joining a terrorist organisation, sabotage, possession of weapons and terrorising civilians.

Judge Youssef initially sentenced 683 people to death, most in absentia, over the attack before referring the case to the grand mufti, the country's top spiritual leader.

The mufti offered his opinion and sent the case back to the judge to confirm his sentence. Lawyers for the accused plan to appeal.

nUS Secretary of State John Kerry passed through Cairo on his way to Jordan yesterday, telling President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi to build a more inclusive government, lift the ban on the Brotherhood and let it take part in political life.