Minya Criminal Court has handed down 12 death sentences and 157 life prison terms for crimes relating to the storming of a police station in 2013. The defendants were convicted on Monday of various acts of violence, including murder, as well as the storming of Matay police station and setting it on fire. Colonel Mostafa El-Attar, the deputy chief of the police station, was killed in the violence. The incident followed the forced dispersal of mass sit-ins in Cairo's Rabaa El-Adawiya and El-Nahda squares in the summer of 2013. Supporters of the-president Mohamed Morsi had gathered to oppose his ouster from office. Following the dispersal, angry rioters stormed police stations and burned a number of churches in various locations across Egypt. The defendants in the Minya case were initially charged with murder, attempted murder, rioting, illegal assembly, disturbing the public peace, and damaging public and private property. In 2014, 37 defendants were handed death sentences before the court ordered a retrial in the case. Hundreds of people have been convicted and acquitted in similar cases since 2013.
