Risingbd Online Bangla News Portal

Dhaka     Friday   29 March 2024

Egypt court sentences 28 to death for killing prosecutor

2 || risingbd.com

Published: 15:09, 22 July 2017   Update: 15:18, 26 July 2020
Egypt court sentences 28 to death for killing prosecutor

International Desk: A Cairo criminal court has sentenced 28 people to death penalty over killing of Egypt's top prosecutor in 2015.

 The court handed down the verdict on Saturday after the death penalty was approved by the country's top religious leader, the Grand Mufti.

It also jailed 15 others for 25 years each over the incident.

Public prosecutor Hisham Barakat was killed in a car bomb attack on his convoy in the capital, an operation for which Egypt blamed the Muslim Brotherhood and Gaza-based Hamas militants. Both groups have denied having a role.

The sentences, confirmed by the court in Saturday's hearing, can be appealed.

"The verdicts were shocking today," said one of the defense lawyers, Ahmed Saad. "Others who had nothing to do with the assassination of martyr Hisham Barakat received life sentences. They had nothing to do with the incident."

Egypt's Interior Ministry released a video last year showing several young men confessing and admitting going to Gaza for training from Hamas, but some later denied the charges in court.

The defendants said they were forced to confess under torture.

Source: Agencies

risingbd/Dhaka/July 22, 2017/A K Azad

risingbd.com