Cairo, Egypt
Reuters
Authorities carried out the death penalty on an Egyptian monk who killed the abbot of his monastery in 2018, a lawyer and the monk’s brother told Reuters on Sunday.
Wael Saad and Ramon Rasmi Mansour, known by their monastic names Isaiah al-Makari and Faltaous al-Makari, were convicted of the killing of Bishop Epiphanius, 64, the abbot of St Macarius Monastery, north-west of Cairo, in a case that sent shockwaves through Egypt’s Coptic Christian community.
A general view of the court where two monks, Wael Saad, known by his monastic name Isaiah al-Makari and Ramon Rasmi Mansour, known as Faltaous al-Makari, were convicted of murdering Bishop Epiphanius, the abbot of Saint Macarius Monastery north-west of Cairo, in Damanhour, Egypt, on 23rd February, 2019. PICTURE: Reuters/Ahmed Fahmy/File photo
Saad’s family was notified to receive his body from a morgue in the Nile Delta town of Damanhour on Sunday, his brother, who is also a monk, said.
Prosecutors had said during their trial that Saad struck the bishop three times in the back of the head with a steel pipe while Mansour stood guard outside.
Mansour was also sentenced to death but his sentence was reduced to life after he won an appeal.
They were defrocked in August, 2018, for what church officials called violations of monastic life and then detained.
