DM Monitoring
CAIRO: An Egyptian court has sentenced 24 Muslim Brotherhood members to death for the killing of police officers in two separate cases, local media reported on Friday.
The state-owned media said the Damanhour Criminal Court ordered the death penalty for 16 defendants affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, including Mohamed Sweidan, a regional leader of the organisation, for their involvement in the bombing of a police bus in Rashid city in Beheira governorate in 2015.
The report added that the blast killed three police officers and wounded 39 others.
The same court also handed down the death penalty to eight Muslim Brotherhood members, who were accused of killing a police officer in December 2014 in Ad Dilinjat city in Beheira. The case was dropped for three of the defendants due to their deaths. Eight of the 24 accused were tried in absentia.
Al-Ahram did not clarify whether the verdicts are final or can be appealed. However, the Shehab Organization for Human Rights, based outside Egypt, said the verdicts are final as they were issued by an emergency court. Capital punishment for civilian convicts in Egypt, the Arab world’s most populous country, is carried out by hanging.
