The Cairo Criminal Court on Thursday sentenced five defendants facing charges based on terror crimes which took place eight years ago.
One of the five defendants was sentenced to 10 years in prison and the other four were each given a five –year imprisonment punishment in the case known publicly as the “First al-Zaytoun Cell”.
The convicts are tried for a second time after an appeal was passed over another verdict. They were referred to trial for the first time in 2010 on charges such as militant radicalism, armed jihad and armed robbery of a jewelry shop in the al-Zaytoun area inCairo.
Prosecution charged the defendants with “establishing an illicit group with the objective of plotting and carrying out unlawful acts, inhibiting the functioning and work of state institutions and public authorities, attacking the personal freedom of citizens, and damaging national unity and social peace.”
Exercising brutal force, assaulting on police officers, foreign tourists and Copts, practicing extortion, targeting public facilities such as oil shipments and naval activities in the Suez Canal, planning to disrupt public order, and endangering social peace, are among the charges pressed against members of the terror ring.
Terrorism was one of the means exercised by the group to achieve its objectives.
