FILE- Court
CAIRO – 4 April 2018: On Wednesday April 4, the Criminal Court in Sohag governorate sentenced 190 defendants for three to 25 years in jail, and put them under surveillance, in the case known publicly as al- Maghara case (The Cave).
According to the final judicial decision issued early in the morning on April 4, 35 defendants were sentenced to a lifetime imprisonment, 61 were sentenced to 15 years, 62 were sentenced to 10 years, 26 to five years and six others were sentenced to three years in jail. All of them are under tight surveillance for the following two years.
The defendants were arrested in 2015 inside one of the caves in the western mountains of Sohag governorate. They were caught with a large number of automatic rifles and ammunition. All of the defendants faced accusations of being members of the Muslim Brotherhood, a group that has been listed as a terrorist organization. They were accused of planning to target police and army officers, as well as public facilities, and destabilize the state’s stability and security.
The western mountains in Sohag governorate are known to be an uninhabited area where locals dig through the ruins and stones in search for antiquities. Additionally, some of the fugitives use the mountains as a shelter to hide from police officers.
In December 2013, the Egyptian government declared the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist group, and that all of its activities were banned by law, and accordingly all of its members would be trialled in a court of law.
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