Egypt's Mufti rejects Brotherhood leader's death sentence, court urges rethink --- (Reuters) - Egypt's top religious authority has rejected a death sentence proposed for the leader of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood and 13 associates for murder and violence, but was asked by a court on Thursday to reconsider. -- Mohamed Badie, the Brotherhood's general guide, and the other defendants were sentenced on June 19, but Egyptian law requires any capital sentence to be referred to Grand Mufti Shawqi Allam, Egypt's highest Islamic legal official, for an opinion before any execution can take place. -- The Mufti's reports are not normally made public, but one of the three judges in the case said the Mufti had stated that "the investigations and evidence were not enough to carry out the death sentence". -- In a move unprecedented in the history of Egyptian law, the court asked the Mufti to reconsider and adjourned the hearing, in which it was due to either uphold or strike down the original sentence, until Aug. 30. -- "The Mufti did not give a religious opinion but interfered in the court's domain by evaluating the evidence of the case," the judge said. -- While many Egyptians have welcomed the army's toppling of elected Islamist president Mohamed Mursi just over a year ago, there is growing unease at the scale and severity of a crackdown on his now-outlawed Muslim Brotherhood. -- Several thousand Brotherhood leaders and members have been arrested, many on terrorism charges, since Mursi's overthrow. --- President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who as army chief overthrew Mursi, said in the run-up to his election in May that the Brotherhood - Egypt's oldest and best organized political group - was finished and would cease to exist under his rule. - More, http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/08/07/us-egypt-courts-badie-idUSKBN0G70ZJ20140807