The Cairo Criminal Court acquitted on Wednesday 26 defendants, sentencing two to life imprisonment, and two others to 3.5 years over charges of involvement in violence outside the Interior Ministry in November 2012.
Defendants faced charges of attempted murder of protesters, disturbing public security and assaulting the police.
The demonstrations in front of the Interior Ministry in 2012 broke out when activists were commemorating the first anniversary of deadly clashes that took place in the same area a year earlier.
The original encounters in 2011 began after a sit-in at Cairo’s Tahrir Square was dispersed forcibly by the police, boosting the tensions that followed the ouster of Hosni Mubarak in February of the same year. The clashes left at least 42 dead.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
