Egyptian Court Issues Verdict in Shia Leader’s Murder Case
The court on Saturday sentenced 23 defendants involved in the brutal lynching of Shia leader Hassan Shehata and three members of his community in June 2013 to lenient sentences of 14 years in prison.
8 other defendants were acquitted of the charges, al-Fath website reported.
Egypt’s prosecutor general had charged all 31, who belong to extremist Salafist groups, with planning to commit crimes and premeditated murder.
In the gruesome lynching effort on June 23, 2013, an angry mob led by the country’s Saudi-backed Salafist sheikhs torched Shia residences in the small village of Zawyat Abu Musalam in Giza, killing four Shia citizens, including Shehata, a prominent cleric who was visiting one of the families in the village when the attack took place.
The lenient sentences for those involved in the brutal murders were issued by the Cairo court while Egyptian judges handed down death sentences to activists involved in inciting rallies in protest at the military ouster of Egypt’s first democratically elected president Mohamed Morsi in July 2013.
http://iqna.ir/fa/News/3314055
