Egyptian authorities executed seven men on Wednesday and Thursday in connection with “politically motivated” cases, and after a legal process marred by torture and lack of evidence, a rights group has told Middle East Eye.
The executions raise the number of political death penalty verdicts implemented since President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi came to power in 2014 to 105 people.
According to several resources, Egyptian prison authorities executed four men on Tuesday, roughly a year after the country’s top appeals court upheld their sentences.
The four men, along with 32 other defendants, had been charged with joining a banned group and with the killing of eight police officers in Helwan on 9 January 2016. The case is known in the media as the “Helwan Microbus Cell” case. The four defendants executed on Tuesday were Abdullah Mohamed Shoukry (35 years, father of 2 children), Mahmoud Abdel Tawab Morsi(36 years, father of 2 children), Mahmoud Abdel Hamid al-Geneidy (father of 4 children), and Ahmed Salama Ashmawy (30 years ).
On Wednesday, 9th March 2020 three other men were executed in connection with the “Soldiers of Egypt” case, more than two years after their sentences were upheld by the court of cassation, on charges of alleged attacks against security forces in 2014 and 2015.
In 2020, 10 defendants in the same case were executed. The three were Belal Ibrahim Sobhy Farahat, Mohamed Hassan Ezzeddin Mohamed Hassan, and Tageddin Monis Mohamed Hemeidah.
The defendants in the “Soldiers of Egypt” case were subjected to enforced disappearance after their arrest and were coerced to make confessions under torture. Lawyers were not permitted to attend their investigation sessions.
Over the past years, Egyptian courts have sentenced thousands to death in what human rights organisations have said are measures taken in retaliation against opponents of President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi’s military coup.
8 Children to grow up fatherless because of unfair trials.
