An Egyptian court on Thursday sentenced to death by hanging 22 Islamist militants for 54 attacks including the attempted assassination of a former interior minister, a judicial source told AFP. Those sentenced to death include a former police officer, and the verdicts cannot be appealed. The 22 convicted were found guilty of being members of the Ansar Beit al-Maqdis group, which pledged its allegiance to the Islamic State group in 2014. The Court of Cassation, Egypt’s highest appeals court, also upheld prison sentences of 118 others in the same case, ranging from terms of several years to life imprisonment. He had been on trial with the 22 men sentenced on Thursday, but had already been found guilty, and was executed in March 2020.

Source: The North Africa Journal November 25, 2021 14:00 UTC