No death sentences carried out in Egypt during Ramadan

Egypt will not carry out death sentences during the month of Ramadan, the state-run newspaper Al-Akhbar reported, citing a senior security official.

Major-General Mohamed Ali Hussein, the head of Egypt’s Prisons Investigation Unit, told Al-Akhbar that authorities do not carry out death sentences during Ramadan.

“All death sentences are carried out once they get ratified by the president,” Hussein said.

Ezzat Ghoneim, a human rights lawyer, told the Anadolu Agency that Egyptian law does not prohibit the implementation of death sentences during the month of Ramadan; it only bans them during religious holidays.

Read: Egypt sentences 20 to death for 2013 police killings

On Monday, the Egyptian Military Appeals Court handed down death sentences to four civilians after they were convicted in March 2016 of charges that include murder and the bombing of a stadium in the northern province of Kafr Al-Sheikh.

The Egyptian authorities carried out eight death sentences in 2015 and 2016 without announcing that they would be taking place.