Egyptian court confirms 20 death sentences over killing of policemen

CAIRO: Egypt´s highest court upheld the death sentences on Monday given to 20 people convicted over a deadly attack on a police station in 2013, judicial sources and the state-run MENA news agency said.

The Court of Cassation, whose rulings are final and cannot be appealed against, also confirmed the life sentences handed out to 80 defendants and 15-year prison terms for 34 others. A police station in the pro-Muslim Brotherhood neighbourhood of Kerdasa near Cairo was attacked in August 2013, just hours after security forces killed hundreds of people in a crackdown on a pro-Brotherhood sit-in in the capital. The sit-in was held to protest the military overthrow of the Brotherhood´s Mohamed Mursi from the presidency the previous month.

The military was led at the time by General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who became president a year later. Earlier this month a court sentenced 75 people to death over the 2013 sit-in.

Since 2013, Egyptian criminal courts have issued hundreds of death sentences, although few have been carried out.