While Egyptian prosecutors recommended on Thursday upholding the rulings against defendants in the murder case of journalist Mayada Ashraf, the country’s Court of Cassation deferred its decision on the appeals to April 18.
On the other hand, the Cairo Criminal Court sentenced 17 Muslim Brotherhood defendants to life in prison, while others were served of prison sentences ranging between 3-15 years, and cleared 15 defendants charged with violence at a rally in Ain Shams (east of Cairo) which resulted in the killing of Ashraf and others.
Public Prosecution had ordered investigating a ring of 48 suspects in 2014 and later confirmed that between January and June of the same year they assumed participation in an unlawful group.
The group was focused on promoting disorder, defiance provisions stipulated by the justice system and the national constitution, impairment of state institutions and public authorities against carrying out duties, and the attacking of personal freedoms of citizens. The ring is also believed to have plotted against national unity and social peace.
The Court of Cassation, on the other hand, reduced the death penalty for the three perpetrators involved in the shooting which targeted the Abu El Matamir police station to 10 years in prison, but upheld the life imprisonment sentence for another defendant and the 10 years imprisonment sentence for three others.
But the Court had earlier rejected the appeal against blacklisting defendants involved in the Abu El Matamir attack.
Public prosecutors had charged members of the terror cell of public vandalism, which included the destroying of high-voltage electricity towers, violence against security offices, and possession of illegal firearms.
