WATANI International
11 August 2011
Three Copts who were sentenced by a military court to five years in prison for illegal possession of weapons during the attack against the Copts in the Cairo district of Ain Shams last May, were released yesterday.
The release order was signed by the military ruler Field Marshal Tantawi, following intervention on the convicts’ behalf by Pope Shenouda III. The court sentence had not been ratified in the first place. The defendants—Emad Ayaad Barsoum and his son Ayaad Emad Ayaad, and Ayman Youssef Halim—had contested the sentences which had been generally seen as overly harsh. Normal sentences for illegal possession of shotguns amount to a year in prison, while possession of a knife warrants six months in jail.
The defendants were among eight Copts and seven Muslims who were detained in the aftermath of the violent attack against the Copts of Ain Shams following the re-opening of the fully-licensed church of the Holy Virgin and Anba Abra’am last May. The church had been closed for three years owing to Muslim rejection of having a church in the neighbourhood. Following Coptic protest, several churches were ordered reopened by the Cabinet, among them the Ain Shams church.