Five people were sentenced to death on Monday over the killing of police officers in one of three cases involving assaults on security forces in the town of Kerdasa on the outskirts of Greater Cairo.
The defendants were accused of killing 11 police officers during an attack on Kerdasa police station in August 2013, following the deadly dispersal of two large sit-ins in Cairo supporting ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi.
They had been sentenced in absentia to death in February, but were later arrested and retried.
Giza criminal court originally sentenced 183 people to death in this case, including 34 in absentia. Defendants appealed the verdict, but a retrial has not been ordered yet.
In a separate case, 22 people were sentenced in April to death for attacking Kerdasa police station and killing a policeman in the wake of Morsi’s ouster in July 2013.
Both lawsuits were originally headed in court by Judge Mohamed Nagy Shehata who has become infamous for issuing mass death sentences and long jail terms against alleged Islamists and pro-January 25 revolution activists.
Last August, 12 people were sentenced to death and another ten to life in prison on charges of killing police general Nabil Farrag and injuring nine other policemen during a security raid Kerdasa in September 2013, which aimed to apprehend those wanted in relation with the August attack on the police station. A retrial in this case has been ordered.
