The recent death sentences handed down to Egypt’s first democratically-elected President Mohamed Morsi and scores of others have prompted fears in the US and Europe of what experts refer to as a “total war” on the Muslim Brotherhood movement by the government in Cairo.

An Egyptian court on Saturday issued the death penalty for Morsi on charges of endangering national security by leaking state secrets to Qatar and escaping from prison during the country’s 2011 revolution, and more than 100 other defendants.

The 2011 revolution ousted the country’s long-time dictator Hosni Mubarak, widely considered a key ally of the US and the Israeli regime.

Morsi, affiliated with Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, was back then elected as the country’s president but was ousted only a year later in a military coup on July 4, 2013 by Mubarak-era army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who then led an interim government that crushed massive protests against Morsi’s ouster and then campaigned for and won the country’s presidency in controversial elections.

Washington, which remains a strong backer of al-Sisi, expressed concerns on Sunday, however, over the unprecedented verdict against Morsi and the others, claiming that it has “consistently spoken out against the practice of mass trials and sentences.”

“We continue to stress the need for due process and individualized judicial processes for all Egyptians in the interests of justice,” said a State Department official, as reported by AFP.

Meanwhile, the European Union (EU)’s top diplomat, Federica Mogherini, further described the Egyptian trial as flawed, saying that the bloc believed the death sentences would be revised upon appeal, according to the report.

“The court decision to seek the death penalty... was taken at the end of a mass trial that was not in line with Egypt’s obligations under international law,” Mogherini added in a statement cited in the report.

Meanwhile, a fierce crackdown under al-Sisi has led to the killing of hundreds of Morsi supporters, with thousands more jailed and hundreds already sentenced to death following mass trials in Egypt

“We continue to stress the need for due process and individualized judicial processes for all Egyptians in the interests of justice,” said a State Department official, as cited in an AFP report.

While relations between Washington and Cairo were briefly strained following Morsi’s military-led ouster, with US President Barack Obama’s administration freezing its annual military grants of $1.3 billion to Cairo, most of the huge military assistance was resumed in late 2014.

The report also cited Middle East experts as saying that the verdict reflected Sisi’s insistence on eradicating the 87-year-old Muslim Brotherhood movement, which topped successive polls between the downfall of Mubarak and Morsi’s presidential victory in May 2012.

“The new regime of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is using all elements of the state to break the political will of the Muslim Brotherhood,” said Fawaz Gerges, a professor of Middle East Studies at the London School of Economics and Political Science, as quoted in the AFP report.

“The judicial system is also waging an all-out war against the Muslim Brotherhood. This clearly reflects a total war waged by the Egyptian state against the Muslim Brotherhood,” Gerges added.

The development came as human rights organizations have accused the Sisi-led Egyptian government of using the country’s judiciary to wipe out the opposition, primarily the Brotherhood, which has already been labeled a “terrorist group.”