The Cairo Criminal Court on Saturday sentenced Hisham al-Ashmawy, a former special forces officer turned extremist, and 36 others to death after they were convicted of terrorism, court officials said.
Dubbed Egypt's "most wanted man" by local media, Ashmawy was returned to Cairo in May last year after his capture in 2018 by the Libyan National Army (LNA) in the city of Derna, eastern Libya.
He was convicted on several charges including plotting a 2014 attack that killed 22 military guards near the frontier with Libya, and involvement in an attempt to kill a former interior minister in 2013, a military statement said.
The former special forces officer, who is in his 40s, was dismissed in 2012 over his radical views.
He joined Ansar Beit al-Maqdis based in the restive Sinai of eastern Egypt but broke off after the group pledged allegiance to the ISIS group in November 2014.
Known by his nom de guerre "Abu Omar al-Muhajir", Ashmawy announced the formation of an al-Qaeda-aligned group, Al-Mourabitoun in Libya, in July 2015.
The other 36 defendants tried with him were also convicted of terrorism charges, the court ruled on Saturday.
Their cases were referred to the Grand Mufti. Egyptian law requires any capital sentence to be referred to him for an opinion before executions can take place.
The court set a new session for March 2 to confirm the convictions after receiving the Mufti's non-binding opinion.
In November, a military court had already sentenced Ashmawy to death in another terrorism case. Egyptian civilian and military courts had also sentenced Ashmawy to death in absentia before his extradition.
