Egypt court orders retrial of 16 Egyptians in police killing case

A court in Egypt has ordered the retrial of 16 people who had been given harsh prison sentences for allegedly killing police officers on the grounds that there had been irregularities in their trial process, Press TV reports.

The high Court of Cassation ordered the re-examination of the case involving the killing of 25 policemen in the Sinai Peninsula in August 2013. It also overturned the sentences of the 16 suspects, who had been sentenced to death or were given long prison terms.

The 16 were among the 35 detainees charged for a rocket-propelled grenade attack on a police bus headed for Rafah border.

According to AFP, an unnamed local official revealed that there had been procedural irregularities in the trials of the 16 prisoners.

Of the 35 charged over the bus attack, three were acquitted, three received life in prison, 22 were sentenced to 15 years in jail and seven had received death sentences. Six of those sentenced to death were tried in absentia.

Most of the militant attacks targeting security forces in the Sinai Peninsula are carried out by a militant group named Velayat Sinai, which was formerly known as Ansar Bait al-Maqdis. The militant group had pledged allegiance to the terrorist ISIL group, which is mainly active in Iraq and Syria.

The militants in Sinai intensified their terrorist attacks against security forces after former President Mohamed Morsi was ousted in 2013.

In October 2014, a huge attack on an Egyptian army checkpoint left more than 30 soldiers dead. Following the deadly terrorist act, a state of emergency was declared in the northwestern part of the Sinai Peninsula. The Egyptian military views the restive Sinai Peninsula as a huge hideout for the militants based there.

The triangular stretch of land known as the Sinai Peninsula, or simply Sinai, measures about 60,000 square kilometers (23,000 square miles) in area and is situated between the Mediterranean Sea to the north, and the Red Sea to the south. It is the only piece of Egyptian territory located in Asia and serves as a land bridge between Asia and Africa.

Also on Saturday, a court of appeals upheld a one-year prison sentence handed down to Abdullah Morsi, the son of Egypt’s ousted president, Mohamed Morsi.

Abdullah, who was convicted over the alleged possession of hashish, has already served most of his jail term and is due to be released in July.

The family of the deposed president strongly denied the allegation, saying it is an attempt to "taint the image of honest people."

Back in July 2013, Morsi was ousted in a military coup orchestrated by President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi , who was then the country’s army chief.

This is while the court upheld the acquittal of Ahmed al-Maghrabi, the housing minister in the cabinet of Egypt’s longtime dictator, Hosni Mubarak, on corruption charges.

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