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31 sentenced to death in Hisham Barakat's killing
[Al Jazeera] A criminal court in Egypt has sentenced 31 people to death for their alleged part in the June 2015 liquidation of the country's top prosecutor, Hisham Barakat.The ruling on Saturday, issued by judge Hassan Farid, referred the case to the country's top theologian to get his non-binding opinion on the death sentences, a formality followed by courts in the case of capital punishment. Delivering the verdict, Farid called Barakat's liquidation a "heinous and cowardly conspiracy". "They shed the blood of a Moslem while he was fasting in Ramadan," Farid said, referring to the Moslem holy month that fell in July in 2015. "And whoever kills a believer intentionally, his punishment is hell," the judge added, quoting a verse from Islam's holy book, the Koran. Barakat was appointed prosecutor-general by Egypt's then interim President Adly Mansour in July 2013, shortly after the military ousted the country's first freely-elected president, Mohammed Morsi. He oversaw the acquittal of former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak ...The former President-for-Life of Egypt, dumped by popular demand in early 2011... He was killed by a boom-mobile near his house in Cairo on June 29, 2015, and is the most senior government official killed by gangs since Morsi's overthrow. Posted by: Fred 2017-06-18 |
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