Court upholds death sentences over Kerdasa massacre

The Giza Criminal Court upheld the death penalty in the trial of five defendants over killing police officers after storming Kerdasa police station in Giza in 2013 during unrest that followed the ouster of president Mohamed Morsi.

The court had last month referred the papers of the five defendants to the Grand Mufti to give his opinion.

Consulting Egypt's Grand Mufti is a procedural step adopted in all cases which involve death sentences. The Mufti's rulings are not binding, yet it is customary for the court to adopt them.

The court had sentenced 183 others to death, one juvenile to ten years in prison and acquitted two others over the same case.

The police station in Kerdasa was attacked on 14 August 2013 in deadly violence which left 14 policemen killed with their bodies mutilated and lynched.

The violence followed a crackdown by security forces on protest camps in Cairo and Giza staged in support of ousted president Mohamed Morsi.

In the following month, police and military forces stormed Kerdasa district to arrest those accused of involvement in the violence.