Police attack: Egypt court upholds death sentences of 20 people

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Egypt’s top Appeals Court on Monday upheld death sentences for 20 people convicted of attacking a police station near Cairo and killing 14 police officers, following the dispersal of Islamist sit-ins in 2013.

The Court of Cassation also upheld life sentences for 80 defendants, 15 years in prison for 34 others and 10 years for a minor in the same case.

They were all convicted of attacking Kerdasa Police Station in Giza province and killing its chief, his deputy and 12 other police officers.

Monday’s verdicts are final. The initial ones were issued by the Cairo Criminal Court in 2017.

In mid-2013, backers of Islamist President Mohamed Morsi, who was ousted by the military after one year in power, staged two protest sit-ins in the two major squares of Rabaa al-Adawiya in Cairo and al-Nahda in Giza.

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In August 2013, security forces cleared the protests with force, in an operation that killed hundreds of people.

The violent dispersal triggered attacks on some police stations, public institutions and churches across the country.

Earlier this month, the Cairo Criminal Court upheld death sentences against 75 people, including senior officials in Morsi’s now-banned Muslim Brotherhood group for participating in the Rabaa al-Adawiya sit-in.

It also sentenced the head of the Muslim Brotherhood, Mohammed Badie, to 25 years in jail in the same case.

All the rulings can be appealed.

Months after Morsi’s ouster, Egyptian authorities declared the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organisation, rounded up thousands of its members and loyalists in the toughest crackdown on the Islamist group since it was created in 1928.

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