EGYPT: 18 SENTENCED TO DEATH IN VARIOUS COURTS OVER MURDER, RAPE, THEFT

April 28, 2016: A total of 18 people were sentenced to death in various courts over murder, rape and theft, Youm7 reported.
Twelve men were sentenced to death by Giza Criminal Court for murdering a victim and attempting to murder two others, including a child.
Five of the defendants were sentenced in absentia.
The crime was perpetrated over tahr, meaning revenge or blood debt, a cultural concept in some rural areas in Egypt dictating that if a family member is killed, a member of the killer’s family must die, which can often spiral into cycles of violence.
The court upheld the sentence after receiving the unbinding opinion of the Grand Mufti, who is consulted it cases of the capital punishment.
Marg Criminal Court in Cairo sentenced a man to death and another to 10 years in prison over smothering a 16-year-old to death.
The victim, Ahmed Khaled, left his hometown in Fayoum to work in Cairo as a tuk-tuk driver to provide for his young siblings. A man known as Gelda murdered Khaled in 2013 and sold the vehicle priced 12,000 ($1,350,) to Yasser F. for 2,000 EGP; the latter knew the tuk-tuk was stolen following a murder.
In Sharqia, the Delta, a 32-year unemployed man was sentenced to death by Zagazig Criminal Court for abducting, raping and murdering his cousin Ishraq, 9, in 2012.
When the girl’s body was found under a pile of sand in building under construction, the villagers surrounded to defendant’s home in an attempt to torch it, but the police intervened and arrested the man.
The same court sentenced a woman and three men to death for murdering a driver and stealing his car in February 2011 during security vacuum resulting from the January 25 Revolution. (Sources: THE CAIRO POST, 28/4/2016)