UPDATED: 20 sentenced to death over Kerdasa massacre

CAIRO – 2 July 2017: Twenty defendants were sentenced to death, 80 sentenced to life and others sentenced to 10 to 15 years in prison by Cairo Criminal Court, Sunday over the killing of 14 police officers in the Giza town of Kerdasa in August 2013.

The defendants were charged with storming a police station in Kerdasa shortly after Rabaa Al-Adwia and Al-Nahda sit-ins dispersal. "Number of Kerdasa and Nahia neighborhood gathered surrounding Kerdasa police station responding to ‘hatful’ calls demanding them to revenge for the allegations of killing civilians by the police officers, and so they used different kind of weapons and started to shoot the officers,” Judge Mohamed Sherien said during the final ruling.

He added that the defendant stormed the police station and argued the officers to surrender and hand over their weapons; however they attacked and killed them in a “cruel way.”

The initial death sentence was issued against the 20 defendants in April, and the court referred the case then to the Grand Mufti for consultation, setting July 2 to issue the judgment.

In Egypt, death sentences are passed on to the Grand Mufti, who acts as the primary religious advisor to the president, before final sentencing. The Mufti’s opinion is not binding but is traditionally followed by the judiciary.

The case includes a total of 156 defendants. They are charged with storming a police station in Kerdasa, a stronghold of the Muslim Brotherhood at the time, dismembering their bodies and killing two passers-by. The case is known as the “Kerdasa massacre” in the Egyptian media.

The incident occurred in the aftermath of the violent dispersal of the Rabaa and El-Nahda sit-ins, staged by the Brotherhood to demand the reinstatement of President Mohamed Morsi amid mass pro- and anti-Brotherhood protests.