A criminal court in Cairo sentenced a defendant to 10 years in jail on Tuesday in the case of the assassination of prosecutor general Hisham Barakat.
Barakat was assassinated four years ago in a car bomb attack on his convoy near his home northeast of Cairo in June 2015. The trial involved 67 defendants, including 51 attending the court session.
The prosecution accused the defendants of several crimes, including joining an illegal group, premeditated murder and the illegal possession of firearms.
They are also accused of acquiring and manufacturing highly explosive bombs.
In 2017, the criminal court sentenced 28 suspects to death, but some appealed to the Court of Cassation. The court later dismissed a number of the appeals.
In February, the prison service carried out the death sentences against nine defendants in the case.
The defendants were charged with having links to members of the Palestinian Hamas movement and receiving training in their camps. They were accused of plotting to target some Egyptian officials “to spark chaos and instability in the country in order to overthrow the state.”
The investigations revealed that the convicts were trained on building explosives and carrying out surveillance against important figures.
After their training was complete, they illegally returned to Egypt to commit their crime and built the explosives that targeted Barakat.
After carrying out the necessary surveillance, they planted the explosives in a car in an area that they knew Barakat’s convoy would pass through. He, along with some of his guards and pedestrians, were killed in the attack.
