Document confirming death penalty against three Egyptians in violation of legislative procedures

Human rights researcher at the Egyptian Coordination for Rights and Freedoms, Ahmed Attar, has revealed that the government has executed three members of the opposition on the charge of murder. Even though they were still pursuing an appeal.

The three were charged with the murder of the son of the president of El Mansoura Court in 2014.

In an interview with Arabi21, the researcher said that “the execution constituted a flagrant violation of the Egyptian legislative procedures and demonstrated the continuation of a process that violates most of the basic justice rights. Moreover, this is not the first case in this regard, and this has been repeated several times”.

Read: HRW condemns execution of 3 Egypt prisoners

Attar said: “The Egyptian Constitution has set up many provisions to preserve the dignity and freedom of the Egyptian citizen, and before this, to preserve his life. The Egyptian law also has many provisions that grant the prisoner the right to appeal against the sentences even after the Court of Cassation, as the right to request a case reinvestigation is one of the extraordinary legal remedies. The law has exclusively defined several reasons for these ways. Whenever one of these reasons is available, the convicted person can benefit from this right.”

Attar also pointed out that “Article 448 of the Egyptian Criminal Procedure Code states that the request of a reinvestigation shall not lead to the suspension of execution of the sentence unless it is a death sentence. Therefore, the Egyptian authorities should have suspended the death sentence pending the decision on the request of the reinvestigation.”