EGYPT SENTENCES 36 TO DEATH FOR CHURCH BOMBINGS AND SHOOTINGS
▶ At least 80 people were killed in one year in attacks on Coptic churches in Cairo, Alexandria and Tanta
Thirty-six people were sentenced to death on Tuesday by an Egyptian military court for their role in deadly church bombings and attacks on security personnel.
Prosecutor General Nabil Sadek referred them to an Alexandria military court last May after at least 80 people died in shootings and bomb attacks on Coptic churches in Cairo, Alexandria and the Nile Delta city of Tanta between 2016 and last year.
The 36 include those charged over an attack in January last year on a security checkpoint near the Western Desert, in which eight policemen were killed, and an assault on the Naqb checkpoint more than 600 kilometres south-west of Cairo.
President Abdel Fattah El Sisi declared a three-month state of emergency after the Palm Sunday church attacks 12 months ago.
It has since been renewed three times after ISIS attacks on security forces in the Western Desert, and another in November on a North Sinai mosque in which more than 300 mainly Bedouin worshippers were killed.
Defence lawyers said the Alexandria military court case named 48 defendants, 17 of whom are still on the run.
The accused were found guilty of links to terrorist cells affiliated with the Egyptian ISIS branch, Wilyat Sinai, as well as those making illegal weapons and explosives.
Prosecutors charged them with planning to launch attacks against Christians during holiday celebrations and Sunday services.
They said the main accused were co-ordinating operations with the leadership of Wilyat Sinai, which was supporting them logistically and with troops.
The court has referred the death sentences to the country’s Grand Mufti Shawki Allam, whose non-binding opinion on capital cases is customary under Egyptian law.
The verdicts are also subject to appeal, a process that can take years.
Egypt’s Coptic minority makes up about 10 per cent of the country’s population of 96 million and they have been targeted many times by ISIS.
The most recent attack on the community took place in December, when gunmen on a motorcycle opened fire outside the Saint Mina church in Helwan, south of Cairo, killing 10 people.
In December 2016, a suicide bomber killed 29 and injured 47 at St Peter and St Paul’s Church. The building, part of Saint Mark’s Coptic Cathedral, is on a large campus in the Abbassia district of the capital, which includes the residence of Pope Tawadros II.
But there was heavy security last weekend as the Egyptian Copts celebrated Easter, with the police and army sending men and devices to detect explosives in an 800-metre perimeter around churches.
Whole blocks in Cairo and Alexandria were sealed off to vehicles in what was an incidentfree holiday.
“Security used to rely more on the informal relationship between each church and the police station of its area,” said Mina Ibrahim, a Coptic affairs analyst at the Orient Institut Beirut.
“Now there are a lot of centralised plans led by the Interior Ministry regarding the strategy and the distribution of police officers, and they place higher-ranking officers around churches,” she said.