Court - File photo
CAIRO - 29 July 2017: Cairo Criminal Court sentenced Saturday eight defendants to death over storming Helwan Police station, southern Cairo, in August 14, 2013.
The case includes 68 defendants accused of storming and setting ablaze Helwan Police station, causing the death of three police officers and three civilians, and injuring 19 others.
The preliminary death sentences were referred to Egypt's Grand Mufti for legal advise. After the Mufti provides his unbinding opinion to the court, it either confirms or commutes the sentence, after which defendants may appeal the sentence legally.
The court set October 10 to issue verdicts regarding the rest of the defendants.
The court has drawn a list of charges against the defendants including: premediated murder, illegal assembly, destruction of public property, damaging police cars and private vehicles, and possession of live ammunition.
Helwan police station attack came in the heels of dispersal of Muslim brotherhood-dominated Rabaa and Nahda sit-ins, where the Brotherhood members and sympathizers of former president Mohamed Morsi convened demanding his reinstatement.
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