Egypt upholds death penalty for football rioters

Court affirms jail for 22 over incident in 2012 that killed 70

CAIRO // Egypt’s highest appeals court yesterday upheld the death sentences against 10 people convicted over a football riot that killed more than 70 fans in 2012.

The riot was one of the world’s deadliest football disasters.

The verdict by the court of cassation is final. Defendants were charged with murder, along with other charges.

The court also upheld convictions of 22 suspects who received up to 10 years’ imprisonment over the rioting. Eleven defendants were sentenced to death but one remained at large and was tried in his absence.

Football matches are often a flashpoint for violence in Egypt.

The rioting erupted on February 2012, at the end of a league match in the Mediterranean city of Port Said between long-time rivals – Cairo’s Al Ahly, Egypt’s most successful club, and home side Al Masry.

Witnesses said the rioting broke out after Cairo fans unfurled banners insulting the local team, which had won the match 3-1.

In a shocking and unexpected turn, Al Masry fans rushed to attack Al Ahly supporters with knives, clubs and rocks. Witnesses and survivors described victims falling from the bleachers as they tried to escape. Hundreds of others fled into an exit passage, only to be crushed against a locked gate when their rivals attacked from behind.

The riot led to the suspension of Egypt’s top football league for more than a year. The league later resumed but with matches played in empty stadiums.

The first Egyptian Premier League game in which fans were allowed back into the stadiums was played in February 2015, but that occasion was also marred by the death of 22 fans in a stampede outside the ground. The stampede followed police’s use of tear gas to stop what authorities at the time said was an attempt by fans to storm the military- owned stadium in a suburb east of Cairo.

In the Port Said disaster, most of the victims belonged to Al Ahly’s “Ultras Ahlawy” – an association of hardcore fans now banned by authorities.

In 2015, an Egyptian court ruled that the Ultras were a terrorist organisation. Members of the Ultras have long been at odds with Egypt’s highly militarised police, taunting them with offensive slogans during matches and fighting them in street battles. Hardcore fans of other clubs also identify themselves by going under variations of the Ultras’ name. During the 2011 uprising that toppled president Hosni Mubarak, the Ultras often provided muscle at rallies, directing protesters, leading chants and standing first in the line of fire as police fired tear gas.

This month, Egyptian police detained more than 100 Al Ahly fans over two days on suspicion that they had planned to stage a protest on the anniversary of the Port Said rioting. The Ultras subsequently cancelled a planned commemoration.

Public gatherings without a permit are banned in Egypt.