Egypt court sentences 10 to death on terror charges
Iran Press TV
Mon Aug 10, 2015 4:40PM
An Egyptian court has handed down preliminary death sentences to ten defendants on charges of forming and running a terrorist cell connected with the global militant organization al-Qaeda, Press TV reports.
The Cairo Criminal Court, presided by judge Mohamed Shereen Fahmy, issued the verdicts on Monday and then sent the papers to Shawki Ibrahim Abdel-Karim Allam, Egypt’s Grand Mufti, to review the decisions.
The opinion of the mufti is not binding to the court, but Egyptian law makes it necessary for judges to seek a religious point of view on any death sentence.
The court will deliver its final verdict in the case on September 27.
The defendants are among a group of 68, who are being tried on charges of forming an al-Qaeda-linked cell responsible for attacks against army and police units in Egypt.
Fifty-two of the defendants are in custody, 13 are being tried in absentia and three have died in police custody.
Mohamed el-Zawahiri, the brother of al-Qaeda chief Ayman el-Zawahiri, is involved in the case. However, he did not receive the death sentence on Monday. Zawahiri is currently behind bars.
Egypt has been struck by violence ever since Mohamed Morsi, the North African country’s first democratically-elected president, was toppled in a military coup led by Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Egypt’s current president and the then army commander, in July 2013.
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