AU panel urges Egypt to halt execution: Activist

An African Union committee has called on Egypt to halt the execution of a supporter of ousted president Mohamed Morsi who had been sentenced to death on murder charges, a rights activist said Friday.

Ahmed Mafrah, director of the Geneva-based Al-Karama human rights center’s office in Cairo, told The Anadolu Agency that his organization filed a complaint on 16 February against the verdict before the Gambia-based African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights.

“Mahmod Ramadan has been put on death row based on false claims,” said Mafrah, whose organization is handling the case.

Mafrah added that the commission had responded with a letter urging President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi to hold the execution until the committee reviews the case.

On 5 February, an Egyptian court upheld a death sentence handed down against Ramadan, who was convicted of killing a teenager after throwing a number of Morsi opponents from the roof of a building during clashes in the coastal city of Alexandria in the summer of 2013.

The court also upheld life sentences handed down against 16 other defendants, 15-year jail terms for eight defendants, and ten-year jail terms for 35 others in connection with the same case.

A minor was also jailed for seven years in the same case.

Defense lawyer Ahmed al-Hamrawi had said that the death penalty against Ramadan was the first to be upheld by an Egyptian court against a supporter of Morsi.

The commission’s letter, of which AA has obtained a copy, called on Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi to intervene to suspend the execution until the panel finalizes its report on the case.

Egypt, a member of the pan-African body, has ratified 1981’s African Charter of Human and People’s Rights.

No date has been announced thus far for Ramadan’s execution.

Egyptian authorities have yet to respond to the African committee’s request. However, the Egyptian government has routinely declines comment on judicial rulings.

The incident for which Ramadan and the other defendants were tried took place two days after the army unseated Morsi – Egypt’s first freely elected president – following massive protests against his one-year rule.

Egypt’s authorities have since launched a wide-ranging crackdown on supporters of Morsi and his embattled Muslim Brotherhood group, detaining thousands and killing hundreds.

Egyptian authorities have also branded the Brotherhood a “terrorist” group on claims that it condones violence, an allegation dismissed by the movement, which says it is committed to peaceful activism.