The life sentences of 10 Muslim Brotherhood protesters were upheld by the Cassation Court Wednesday for allegedly killing a cab driver in Mansoura in 2013, Youm7 reported.
The driver was passing by an anti-military protest in December in the Delta city with a picture of then-Minister of Defense Abdel Fatah al-Sisi on his car. It is uncertain whether the protesters attacked him for that, or, according to claims by Islamist protesters, for provoking the demonstrators.
He was snatched out of vehicle, beaten and stabbed and his car was torched.
The defense team said the defendants were not related to the Brotherhood and that there was no evidence they killed the driver. Mansoura Criminal Court sentenced 24 to life, 14 of whom in absentia.
The Cassation Court also upheld the sentence of 70 alleged members of the Islamist group, including life sentence for nine, three years for five and a year for 56. Their charges include rioting, incitement, attempted murder, and sabotage in the aftermath of the violent dispersal of 2013 Rabaa al-Adaweya sit-in in Cairo.
Further, the court upheld the prison terms of 32 students who allegedly support the Brotherhood. Of the students, 24 were sentenced to 10 years in prison and eight were sentenced to three years. The challenge of two students was accepted and they are going to be retried.
The students, accused of violence, were arrested during the third anniversary of the January 25 Revolution in 2014. Their lawyers have claimed that the sentence was “flawed” and that there was no evidence.
