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EGYPTIAN HANDED DEATH SENTENCE FOR COPT KILLINGS
January 16, 2011: A Muslim man was condemned to death in south Egypt for the January 2010 slaying of six Copts after Christmas mass, a year before a suicide bomber killed 21 people outside a Coptic church.
A Muslim policeman also died when three gunmen in a car raked worshippers emerging from mass with bullets in Nagaa Hammadi, near the southern town of Qena.
Mohammed Ahmad Hossein, also known as Hamam Kammouni, was considered the ringleader of the attack.
A Qena court said it would also announce verdicts against the two other Muslim suspects, Qorshi Abul Haggag and Hendawi Sayyed, on February 20. All three had pleaded innocent to charges of carrying out the January 6, 2010 attack.
The chief judge of the Qena security court, which allows no right of appeal, gave no motive for the attack in which the Copts were gunned down.
A Qena prosecutor charged the three suspects arrested two days after the attack with "premeditated murder, putting the lives of citizens in danger, and damage to public and private property." (Sources: Afp, 16/01/2011)
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