An Egyptian court sentenced Monday two convicts to three-year imprisonment in the “Returnees from Libya” case.
They were convicted of involvement in acts of violence and terrorism outside Egyptian territory and planning to target facilities inside the country.
Cairo Criminal Court sentenced Mohammed Farouk and Ashraf al-Sayyed to three years in prison and awarded them criminal costs.
In February 2015, the Attorney General referred them both to criminal prosecution after being arrested at Salloum port on their return from Libya.
The prosecution accused them of receiving military training by al-Qaeda in Libya, joining a group established contrary to the provisions of law, impeding the constitution’s provisions, preventing state institutions and public authorities from carrying out their work, attacking people’s freedom, and harming national unity and social peace.
“They used terrorism as a means to achieve their purposes, and they participated and others in assaulting people, using force and violence against each other and carrying firearms,” it said.
The two convicts were sentenced by a different criminal court, ranging from execution to life imprisonment.
They appealed these sentences to the Court of Cassation, which accepted the appeal and ordered their retrial before a different criminal court.
In another case, the country’s Court of Cassation has commuted a death sentence against a defendant convicted in the case of storming Kerdasa police station in Giza on July 2013 following an appeal filed by the defendant.
It also rejected appeals by three defendants sentenced to life in prison and seven others sentenced to 15 years in the same case.
The prosecution had charged the defendants with premeditated murder, attempted murder, possession of firearms and ammunition and attacks on police officers.
Monday’s Court of Cassation verdict comes more than a year after the defendants were handed jail terms by a Giza criminal court in a retrial in May 2018.
