Egypt’s military court has handed death sentences to 17 people accused of bomb attacks on Coptic churches in 2016 and 2017, the BBC reports.
The 17 people sentenced to death in Egypt were involved in bomb attacks on Coptic churches in Cairo, Alexandria and Tanta in 2016 and 2017. PICTURE: World Watch Monitor.
The attacks that killed dozens of people were claimed by Islamic State. One of them was the bomb explosion in a chapel adjacent to the Coptic Orthodox Cathedral of St Mark in Cairo on 11th December 2016. Twenty-seven people were killed and more than 40 injured during the attack.
World Watch Monitor has reported about a woman, Samiha Tawfiq Awad, who had lost half of her face during the attack. On the damaged side of the face she can neither hear, smell, nor see.
Shortly after the Cairo attack, two attacks targeted Coptic churches on Palm Sunday, 9th April 2017, in Alexandria and Tanta. The bombing of St George’s Cathedral in the Nile Delta city of Tanta, 60 miles north of Cairo, killed 25 and injured at least 78. A suicide bomber then blew himself up among worshippers leaving St. Mark’s Cathedral in Alexandria, where Coptic Pope Tawadros had just finished celebrating Mass. Eighteen worshippers and four police officers were killed, and 35 were injured.
The military court also sentenced 19 people to life over the attacks. Ten others were handed shorter prison terms – between 10 and 15 years.
All of the sentences can be appealed before a higher military court.
