AFP
December 4, 2014, 12:01 am TWN
CAIRO -- An Egyptian court condemned 188 people to death Tuesday over a deadly attack on police, as the prosecution said it will appeal the acquittal of ex-President Hosni Mubarak over protester deaths.
The accused, of whom 143 are behind bars, were found guilty of taking part in an Aug. 14, 2013 attack on a police station in Kerdassa, a village on the outskirts of Cairo, killing 13 policemen.
The attack took place on the same day security forces violently dismantled two massive pro-Morsi protest camps in Cairo in an operation that led to clashes in which at least 700 lost their lives.
Death sentences in Egypt are subject to approval by the mufti, the country's highest Muslim religious authority. The verdict is to be confirmed or commuted on January 24.
Since the army deposed Morsi last year, at least 1,400 of his supporters have been killed in a crackdown on protests and hundreds sentenced to death in swift trials.
The U.N. human rights office said Tuesday that Egypt must rein in its security forces and investigate rights abuses against protesters.
It said it was deeply concerned by “the seriously damaging lack of accountability for human rights violations committed by security forces in the context of demonstrations.”
The sentences came as the public prosecutor's office said it will appeal a court decision to drop a murder charge against Mubarak over the deaths of protesters during the 2011 uprising that drove him from power.
“The prosecutor general has decided to appeal,” a statement said, after a Cairo court Saturday ordered the dropping of murder and corruption charges against Mubarak, who was forced to resign after three decades in power.
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