Egypt hangs six Islamists for killing army officers

PTI CAIRO, MAY 17 The defendants had filed an appeal but was rejected by court in March. Two defendants were sentenced to life in prison in the same case.Egypt on Sunday hanged six Islamists who were involved in the killing of two army officers, ignoring rights groups’ appeal to spare them. The convicts’ death sentence was upheld by a military court in March, following a trial in which the six were convicted of carrying out attacks after the ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in July 2013. The defendants were charged of planning terrorist operations, attacking military personnel, army facilities, naval ships, and being members of the Sinai-based militant group Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis. Death sentence was handed down to seven Islamists, including one in absentia, in the last year’s case known as ’Arab Sharkas’. The defendants had filed an appeal but was rejected by court in March. Two defendants were sentenced to life in prison in the same case. ’Arab Sharkas’ is a village in the Qaliubiya governorate, north of Cairo, where security forces carried out a raid in March 2014 against a terrorist cell in which two military officers were killed. Rights groups had sent letters to the National Council for Human Rights and the Presidency last month, requesting them to stop the executions. Amnesty International said the men underwent a “grossly unfair” trial and that the only witness during the trial was a secret police officer. Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis has claimed responsibility for many of the attacks against army and police forces in the restive North Sinai governorate following the ouster of country’s first democratically elected president Morsi.