Cairo – The Egyptian criminal court referred on Monday 20 suspects linked to the “Kerdassa massacre” to the grand mufti in a measure that precedes laying down the death penalty against them.

On August 14, 2013, a month after former President Mohammed Morsi, of the Muslim Brotherhood, was overthrown by the army, security forces forcibly dispersed two pro-Morsi protest camps in Cairo in an operation that killed more than 700 people.

Hours later a furious crowd attacked a police station in the Cairo suburb of Kerdassa, where 14 policemen were killed.

A year later, a Cairo court sentenced to death 183 suspects, but a higher court scrapped the verdict last year, calling instead for the retrial of 149 suspects who were behind bars.

Of those 149, on Monday a Cairo criminal court sentenced to death 20 people, a judicial official said, adding that a decision concerning the others would be made at another hearing on July 2.

Egyptian courts have sentenced hundreds of Morsi supporters to death since his overthrow, but many have appealed and won new trials.

Morsi and other top figures of his Muslim Brotherhood have also faced trial.