An Egyptian court sentenced former Islamist President Mohamed Morsi to death on Tuesday in a case related to a 2011 mass jail break.

The court had sought the death penalty for Morsi in May and referred its recommendation to Grand Mufti Shawqi Allam, the country's most senior religious authority, a step required by law for death sentences.

The general guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, Mohamed Badie, was also sentenced to death.

Influential senior Muslim cleric Sheikh Youssef al-Qaradawi was later sentenced death in absentia, also relating to a mass jail break in 2011.

The verdicts can be appealed.

The court last month sought the death penalty for Morsi after he and his fellow defendants, including Brotherhood leader Mohamed Badie, were convicted of killing and kidnapping policemen, attacking police facilities and breaking out of jail during the uprising against then-president Hosni Mubarak.

The court is seeking, in addition to Morsi, the death sentence for 106 others in the same case, which has drawn drawn criticism from the United States, other Western governments and human rights groups.

The Islamist Morsi was Egypt's first democratically elected president and was overthrown by the army in 2013 after mass protests against his rule.

He has said the court is not legitimate, describing legal proceedings against him as part of a coup led by former army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in 2013.

Sisi, now president, says the Brotherhood poses a grave threat to national security. The group maintains it is committed to peaceful activism.

Despite U.S. lawmakers' concerns that Egypt is lagging on democratic reforms, Cairo remains one of Washington's closest security allies in the region.

Relations cooled after Morsi was overthrown but ties with Sisi have steadily improved.

In late March, U.S. President Barack Obama lifted a hold on a supply of arms to Cairo, authorizing deliveries of U.S. weapons valued at over $1.3 billion.