An Egyptian court has sentenced 28 people to death for their involvement in the murder of the country's chief prosecutor in 2015. Hisham Barakat was killed in a car bomb after jihadists called for attacks on judiciary.
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The Cairo Criminal Court also handed down jail sentences ranging from 10 years to life to 38 co-defendants in the same case. Of 67 defendants, 15 are still at large. The ruling can be appealed.
Saturday's sentences came after consultations with the Grand Mufti, Egypt's highest religious authority, over preliminary death sentences issued in June.
Barakat was killed in 2015 in a car bomb attack in Cairo after Egypt's powerful military toppled former president Mohammed Morsi's elected government in 2013. Morsi's Islamist supporters had vowed to avenge it by increasing attacks on pro-military officials and judiciary.
No group claimed responsibility for Barakat's assassination, but police later said the perpetrators were members of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood organization.
Egypt's deadliest terror attacks
The rise of Islamic extremism in and around Egypt since the 1990s has seen a big rise the number of attacks targeting tourists and non-Muslims. DW looks back at some of the most devastating.
Image: picture-alliance/AA
1997 Luxor massacre
Sixty-two tourists were killed at Egypt's Deir el-Bahri archaeological site in Luxor. Six assailants, thought to have been linked to al-Qaida, disguised themselves as members of the security forces and descended on the temple armed with automatic machine guns and knives. Egyptian tourist police and military forces eventually stopped the attackers, who were either killed or committed suicide.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo/M. El-Dakhakhny
2004 Sinai bombings
A series of bomb attacks targeting tourists in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula killed 34 people and injured 171. Most of the casualties were killed after a truck drove into the lobby of the Taba Hilton. Two more bombs went off at campsites some 50 kilometers away, killing a handful of people. Roughly half the casualties were foreigners, including 12 Israelis.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo/A. Nabil
2005 Sharm el-Sheikh attacks
The attack in the Egyptian resort city of Sharm el-Sheikh was carried out on Egypt's Revolution Day and for a decade remained the worst Islamist attack in Egypt's history. A series of bombs planted close to bars and restaurants, as well as by a hotel, killed 88 people and injured 150. The majority of victims were locals, although a number of tourists also died, including 11 British nationals.
Image: dpa
2006 Dahab bombings
The attack on the the Egyptian resort city of Dahab marked the third consecutive year that tourist resorts had been targeted. A series of blasts in a restaurant, a café and a market killed at least 23 people, most of whom were local, and wounded around 80. Egyptian officials maintain that the attacks were carried out by the Islamist cell known as Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad, a forerunner of "IS."
Image: AP
2015 Metrojet Flight 9268 disaster
All 224 mostly Russian passengers were killed when Metrojet Flight 9268 suddenly dropped out of the sky over the Egypt's Sinai peninsula, shortly after having taken off from Sharm el-Sheikh international airport. Authorities agree that it appeared a bomb had been snuck on board. The so-called "Islamic State" jihadi group claimed responsibility for the attack.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/M. Grigoriev
2016 Attacks on Egypt's Coptic Christian minorities
While Egypt's Coptic Christians have for decades been targeted by Islamists, deadly attacks on Coptic churches have increased dramatically in recent months. At least 102 Egyptian Christians have been killed in four separate attacks since December 2016.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/Stringer
2017 Coptic church and Al-Rawda mosque bombings
On April 9, 2017, the Coptic church faith followers encountered devastating twin blasts in Tanta and Alexandria as they celebrated Palm Sunday, killing 28 and 17 people respectively. On November 24, 2017, a bomb went off outside of Al-Rawda mosque in the city of Al-Arish in the northern Sinai Peninsula, which claimed the lives of more than 300 people and injured 109 others.
Image: picture-alliance/AA
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Politically-motivated trials?
"The verdicts were shocking today," said Ahmed Saad, a defense lawyer.
"Others who had nothing to do with the assassination of martyr Hisham Barakat received life sentences. They had nothing to do with the incident," he added.
Last year, Egypt's Interior Ministry released a video showing several young men confessing to having received training from the militant Hamas group in Gaza. The defendants later retracted their statements and alleged the police tortured them to make confessions.
Egyptian courts have sentenced hundreds of Morsi followers since 2013. Rights groups say the trials do not meet international standards of justice.
Morsi became the first democratically-elected president of the country in 2011 after the end of Mubarak's decades-long rule, but was ousted by Egypt's powerful army following a mass uprising against him in 2013. Army head Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi was subsequently elected president.