Cairo Criminal Court, headed by Judge Hassan Farid, sentenced on Tuesday eight defendants to death, 50 to life in prison, seven to ten years of rigorous imprisonment, and three others to five years in prison over riots that occurred following the dispersal of Rabaa al-Adaweya and al-Nahda sit-ins in August 2013.
The court sentenced the 50 defendants to life in prison in absentia, while the rest of the defendants attended the trial.
According to inevstigations, the defendants were implicated in storming Helwan Police Staion on August 14, 2013. They set up stone walls fortifying themselves and threw stones and Molotov cocktails at the police station, burned rubber tires and gas cylinders, and fired a barrage of bullets at policemen at the station.
The defendants killed three policemen and wounded 19 others, burned the whole police station, and destroyed 20 police cars and three private cars, according to investigations.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
