Screen shot of court ruling against 379 defendants in the case known as "Dispersal of Nahda Sit-in"
CAIRO - 9 January 2018: Cairo Criminal Court sentenced Tuesday 26 defendants and 223 others to life and 15 years in prison, respectively, for taking part in the armed sit-in at Nahda Square, Giza in 2013. The life sentence in Egypt normally runs for 25 years.
The list of defendants in the case known in the media as the "Dispersal of Nahda Sit-in", includes 379 accused, 190 of whom were tried in absentia.
According to the court's decision on Tuesday, the defendants are obliged to pay around LE 17 million ($960,670) in compensation to the Giza Zoo for damages that followed the sit-in.
The defendants are accused of organizing rallies that threatened public order and stability, as well as forming an armed group. All the defendants were implicated in violent acts, including blocking transportation, holding and torturing individuals and possessing firearms and explosives.
On August 14, 2013, security forces set out on dispersing the Muslim Brotherhood-dominated sit-in in Nasr City’s Rabaa al-Adawiya, along with another sit-in that was located in Nahda Square in Giza.
Upon a series of investigations carried out under the supervision of late prosecutor general Hisham Barakat, the defendants were referred to the Criminal Court on charges of organizing armed marches from the Nahda sit-in site to different areas in Giza with the goal of terrorizing people.
"The prosecution had stressed that state authorities had been forced to end the armed sit-in to spare civilian blood," Egypt's state news agency MENA stated earlier.
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