CAIRO • A Cairo criminal court yesterday sentenced former Egyptian president Mohamed Mursi and 19 others to three years in prison, for "insulting the judiciary", his lawyer said.

Mursi had already been sentenced to a total of 45 years in prison in two other trials after the military ousted him in 2013. He was also ordered to pay two million Egyptian pounds (S$150,100) to the head of the judges' syndicate and another judge.

The other defendants yesterday were former members of Parliament, activists and three journalists.

They included leading Egyptian activist Alaa Abdel Fattah and lawmaker and television presenter Tawfik Okasha. Both were given fines ranging from 30,000 to one million Egyptian pounds.

The verdicts can still be appealed. Mursi's lawyer, Mr Abdel Moneim Abdel Maqsud, told Agence France-Presse that he would appeal the verdict.

Mursi, democratically elected after Egypt's 2011 revolution, was overthrown in mid-2013 by then-General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, now the President, following mass protests against his rule. He was immediately arrested.

He is serving a 20-year sentence after being convicted of inciting the killing of protesters during demonstrations in 2012, and a 25-year sentence for spying for Qatar.

Thousands of Islamists have been arrested and put on trial since the military ousted the divisive Mursi. President Sisi has also clamped down on dissent.

Mass trials have been held for thousands of Mursi's Muslim Brotherhood supporters, and hundreds have received death sentences or lengthy prison terms.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, REUTERS