Thirty men were sentenced to between 10 years to life imprisonment on Saturday for membership of ISIS terrorist organization and planning a suicide bombing on a church in the Egyptian city of Alexandria, court officials said.
Authorities said at the time of their arrest that the defendants had embraced the ideas of ISIS and received training abroad - in Syria and Libya - and in Egypt.
Twenty of the defendants who appeared in court did not react to the sentences. The other 10 are still on the run and were sentenced in absentia.
The attack on the church did not take place. But minority Christians have faced a series of assaults in Alexandria and other parts of Egypt in recent years.
ISIS claimed responsibility for suicide bombings on churches in Alexandria and Tanta in April 2017 that left 45 people dead.
The defendants were also accused in addition of other charges of joining an illegal group and possessing weapons and explosives.
Eighteen of them received life terms, which are 25 years long in Egypt, eight got 15 years in prison and four were sentenced to 10 years, the head of the Alexandria Criminal Court, convened in Cairo, said.
