I have been sentenced to death. The charges related to an attack in 1993 on a police checkpoint near the southern town of Tema in which the policeman was killed and another police guard wounded. Tema lies between the provinces of Sohag and Assiut, where militants bent on overthrowing the government have staged dozens of attacks. This is unfair. What have they done.
Defendants have no right of appeal at state security courts.
They may petition for mercy from the prime minister in his capacity as military governor. Monday's verdicts bring to 92 the number of Moslem militants sentenced to death by Egyptian courts since armed Islamists began a campaign to install a strict Islamic state in 1992. Last week, a military court sentenced to death 2 brothers for an attack on a tourist bus in which 9 Germans and an Egyptian were killed. More than 1,100 people, mostly militants and policemen, have been killed in political violence since armed Islamists began their campaign in 1992.