CAIRO: An Egyptian appeals court Saturday ordered a retrial of 152 hard-liners, including 37 sentenced to death in a mass trial that had sparked international outrage, judicial officials said.

Last March, a lower court in the southern province of Minya sentenced to death 529 supporters of ousted President Muhammad Mursi, including the 152 who were in custody, for attacking a police station and killing an officer in August 2013.

The lower court later commuted the death sentences to life in prison in the case of 492 defendants, while 37 were ordered sent to the gallows.

The 152 defendants in custody appealed the lower court’s verdict, which the Court of Cassation overturned, ordering a retrial.

Another batch of 183 hard-liners, including the chief of Mursi’s Muslim Brotherhood, Mohamed Badie, was also sentenced to death by the same Minya court last June on similar charges.

Badie, who is in custody and facing several trials, was granted a retrial along with 27 others for being sentenced in absentia by the court in Minya.

Under Egyptian law, people sentenced in absentia automatically get a retrial if they surrender themselves.

Meanwhile, a female demonstrator was killed in clashes with Egyptian police during a rare leftwing protest in Cairo Saturday, the eve of the anniversary of the 2011 uprising against Hosni Mubarak.