Soltan amongst 37 given life sentences in Egypt

Fourteen people were sentenced to death by an Egyptian court on Saturday while a further 37 were given life terms after being accused of holding a sit-in in support of ousted President Mohamed Morsi.

Twelve of those handed life sentences as part of Case 317, which is popularly known as “Rabaa Operations Room”, were journalists, while another was given the death penalty.

The defendants were accused of “masterminding a plot to sow chaos and storm and set fire to police stations, state institutions, public and private property and churches.”

Khaled Al-Bashy, head of the Journalists Syndicate Freedoms Committee, said that the syndicate would defend all journalists sentenced and create a legal committee to assess the sentences and the condition in which the journalists are held.

Egyptian-American Mohamed Soltan who was arrested in August 2013, and subsequently went on a hunger strike in protest against his illegal detention, was also sentenced to life. Soltan has been on hunger strike for over 400 days.

Following the ruling, US State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said: “The US government is deeply disappointed in the Egyptian court’s decision in the case of US citizen Mohamed Soltan…we remain deeply concerned about Mr Soltan’s health and detention.”

This is not the first time an Egyptian court has issued mass death sentences. In 2014, 529 Muslim Brotherhood supporters were given the death penalty, a further 683 in April of the same year, and 185 more in December. In February this year, 183 defendants were also sentenced to death.

The 12 journalists sentenced to life imprisonment were:

• ‘Youm 7‘ journalist Hany Salah Uddin
• Gamal Nassar
• Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) spokesperson Ahmed Subai
• Khaled Abbas
• Ibrahim Al-Sayed
• Mohamed Mostafa Al-Adly
• Musad Al-Barbary
• Mohamed Ansary
• Karem Mahmoud
• Co-founder of Rassad network Samhy Mostafa
• Co-founder of Rassad network Abdallah Al-Fakhrany
• Co-founder of Rassad network Ahmed Abdel Alim

The other defendants included:

• Essam Moukhtar
• Ahmad Arif
• Mowad Ali
• Gehad El-Haddad
• Omar Abdel-Alim
• Ahmed Abdel Hafid
• Ashraf
• Sa’ad El Shater
• Ayman El Fiqy
• Ahmed Gom’aa
• Ahmad AbdelHady
• Ehab Ahmed
• Ahmed Qasem

Those sentenced in absentia included:

• Ahmed Abbas
• Ahmad AbdelGhani
• Magdy Abdulateef
• Abdu Dosoqi
• Hassan Al-Qabani
• Amr Farrag
• Mohamed Sanhawi
• Sameer Mahmoud

Journalist Walid Abdel Raouf Shalaby of the Freedom and Justice Party was amongst those who were handed the death penalty. They included:

Muslim Brotherhood Supreme Leader Mohammed Badie

• Hossam Bakr
• Musfy Al-Ghoneimy
• Saad El-Hoseiny
• Salah Soltan
• Omar Malek
• Mohamed Al-Mohamady
• Fathy Shehab El-Deen
• Mahmoud Al-Barbary
• AbdelRaheem Ali.

And two in absentia:

• Mahmoud Ghozlan
• Saad ‘Omara.