After accepting the appeal presented to it regarding the case of the 12 Copts who were sentenced last May to 25 years imprisonment for their part in a fight which took place
in the town of Abu-Qurqas in April 2011 and which left three Muslims dead and one wounded, as well as several Copts’ houses burnt, the Criminal Court of Minya in Upper Egypt, yesterday issued its final verdict.
Alaa’ Rushdy, Yacoub Fadl, Abdullah Mikhail Abdullah, Adel Abdullah Mikhail, Fanous Nady Ibrahim, Magdy Nady Ibrahim, Gamal Fouad Hanna, Eid Ibrahim Fanous, Safwat Kamel Habib Ghattas, Eid Abdullah Mikhail, Magdy Abdullah Mikhail, and Saeed Waheed Deif were all sentenced to life imprisonment. The court acquitted the eight Muslim men who had been charged in the same case: Ahmed Mustafa Rabie, Taher Atef Taher, Khaled Ibrahim Mohamed, Ahmed Badr Ahmed, Ramadan Abdel-Azim Mohamed, Reda Sayed Ahemd, Ismail Mamdouh Mahmoud, and Ikrami Abdullah Mohamed.
The April 2011 fight in Abu-Qurqas village in Minya had erupted over a speed bump which the Coptic lawyer, Alaa’ Rushdy, had constructed in front of his house in order to slow down traffic. The defendants, the 12 Copts and eight Muslims, had all been charged with mobbing, premeditated murder, threatening public peace, sectarian sedition, arson, and using unlicensed arms to threaten security and public order.
Watani International
5 December 2012