Judge hands down 188 death sentences for Kerdasa violence

Head of Giza Criminal Court, Judge Mohamed Nagy Shehata, sentenced 188 defendants to death on Tuesday on charges in connection with violence in the Giza town of Kerdasa last year.

The defendants were sentenced on charges related to breaking into Kerdasa police station and killing its sheriff, his deputy and 12 others including officers, soldiers and passersby, state-run newspaper Al-Ahram reported.

The death sentences have been referred to Egypt’s grand mufti — the country’s chief religious cleric — for his ratification, which is not binding to the court. A session on January 24 has been scheduled to give the final verdict.

The defendants, all allegedly affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist groups, purportedly took part in the attack on the police station in Giza on August 14 last year. They were accused of using firearms, RPG missiles and Molotov cocktails to break into the station, steal weapons and then kill the security personnel inside, whose bodies were then mutilated and paraded through the streets.

The attack occurred on the same day as the forcible dispersals of two pro-Brotherhood sit-ins at Rabea al-Adaweya and Giza's Al-Nahda Square in Cairo on August 14. The ensuing security crackdown lead to the death of several hundred protesters, most of them at Rabea al-Adaweya.

Ousted President Mohamed Morsi was forced to step down on July 3 by the military under the command of former defense minister, and current president, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

On September 19, a security operation to arrest members of the Brotherhood allegedly implicated in the attack on the police station resulted in the death of Major General Nabil Farrag who was shot dead. Giza Criminal Court upheld death sentences on August 6, 2014 against 12 defendants accused of killing Farrag and being affiliated to a terrorist group.

Egypt’s judiciary has been repeatedly criticized by anti-death sentence groups, human rights organizations and foreign governments for issuing unprecedented numbers of mass death sentences against defendants allegedly affiliated with Islamist groups.

In March, 529 were sentenced to death in Minya on charges related to storming and burning the Matay police station in the Upper Egyptian city, killing a police officer and attempting to kill two others, as well as stealing weapons and releasing inmates.

The same court sentenced 180 more defendants to death in June, including Mohamed Badie, supreme guide of the Muslim Brotherhood. The defendants were accused of inciting violence against police and civilians in Minya in the aftermath of Morsi's ouster.

Judge Shehata, who handed out Tuesday's sentences in Giza, is also the judge who ruled in the notorious so-called "Al Jazeera Trial," in which journalists Mohamed Fadel Fahmy, Baher Mohamed and Australian correspondent Peter Greste were sentenced to seven to ten years in prison.

Shehata is also ruling in a case involving April 6 activist Ahmed Douma, who has complained of the judge’s arbitrary decisions and held him accountable for not receiving proper health care while on hunger strike.