EGYPT: THREE SENTENCED TO DEATH OVER FAILED 2018 ALEXANDRIA SECURITY CHIEF ATTACK

June 15, 2020:

The Cairo Criminal Court has handed down death sentences to three defendants over the failed assassination of Alexandria's Chief of the Security Directorate Mostafa Al-Nemr in March 2018, the Daily News reported on 14 June 2020. 
The court, headed by Judge Mohamed Sherine Fahmy, sentenced a further eight defendants to life imprisonment. It also ruled that the defendants should spend five years on police probation, as well as adding their names to the ‘terrorist lists'.
In a previous hearing, the court referred the three defendants' sentence to Egypt's Grand Mufti, Shawqy Allam, seeking his opinion on a preliminary death sentence. 
The defendants, of which there were 11 in total, faced charges including the attempted murder of Al-Nemr and members of his convoy and others in Alexandria, willfully killing two police conscripts, and belonging to and leading a terrorist group, the Hasm Movement.
In March 2018, two police conscripts were killed and five others injured in a bomb attack that targeted Al-Nemr's covoy, just a few days before the 2018 presidential election. 
The Ministry of Interior at that time said that an explosive device planted underneath a car was blown up as Al-Nemr's convoy drove by on Moaskar ElRomany Street in Alexandria's Roushdy district. The ministry announced afterwards that it had killed six members of the Hasm Movement, the Islamist group believed to be behind the attack.