Egyptian authorities today hanged nine people convicted of involvement in the killing of 13 police officers during a 2013 attack on a police station in southern Cairo.
According to an unknown court source, the shootings took place in Wadi al-Natrun prison northwest of Cairo.
Nine people were in a group of 20 people sentenced to death in 2018 for killing 13 police officers during the August 14, 2013 riots in Cairo.
The attack came after security forces suppressed two demonstrations by supporters of former Islamist President Mohammed Morsi, and hundreds were killed.
Then an angry mob attacked a police station in Kerdes, a suburb of Cairo known for being a stronghold of Islamists.
A court source did not specify the fate of the remaining 11 convicts in 2018, according to AFP.
For their part, human rights groups said the August 14, 2013 violence was “one of the largest killings of protesters in a single day in recent history.”
“Today’s death penalty is a cold demonstration of the Egyptian authorities’ disregard for their right to life and their obligations under international law,” Amnesty International said in a statement.
Meanwhile, according to Human Rights Watch, under President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, elected in 2014, Egypt became one of the ten countries that used the death penalty the most.
