Ruling delayed THE FINAL verdict on the death sentences imposed last week on 188 defendants in the Kerdasa clashes case has been delayed until 22 February as a result of security concerns. The Giza criminal court sentenced the defendants to death on 2 December and sent the verdict to the Grand Mufti for review, a requirement in Egyptian law before any execution can be carried out. The Mufti's decision is non-binding, however. The court originally set 24 January 2015 as the date for its final verdict, which can be appealed. The defendants were found guilty of killing police officers after storming the Kerdasa police station in Giza following the dispersal of pro-Morsi sit-ins in Cairo on 14 August 2013 that left hundreds dead and sparked nationwide unrest. They were also found guilty of the attempted murder of ten other police personnel, sabotaging the police station, torching a number of police vehicles and possessing heavy firearms. Out of the 188, 151 are in detention while 37 were tried in absentia. This is not the only mass death sentence issued by the courts this year. In March, the Minya court passed the death penalty on 529 people for killing a police officer and committing acts of violence. And in April the same judge handed down the same sentence in a separate case to another 683 people on similar charges. The Grand Mufti approved the death sentences for 37 in the first trial and 183 in the second, both of which the court upheld. The to cases are currently being appealed. The two mass death sentences were widely criticised by local and international rights groups and foreign governments. Charges denied QATAR-BASED Egyptian cleric Sheikh Youssef Al-Qaradawi denied inciting murder on his Facebook page on Monday, after the international police agency Interpol issued a warrant for his arrest at the request of Egypt. “I did not kill, and I never incited murder such that Interpol would put me on the wanted list,” Al-Qaradawi said in the statement. Interpol said the charges, as listed by Egypt, were “agreement, incitement and assistance to commit intentional murder, helping prisoners to escape, arson, vandalism and theft.” Al-Qaradawi has close links to the banned Muslim Brotherhood and is a staunch critic of former president Mohamed Morsi's ouster in 2013. “Those who killed thousands of innocent people at the Republican Guard headquarters, Manassa, Rabaa, Al-Nahda, Ramsis and other places are known and are being invited to Western capitals, Russia and the United Nations, as if they were they presidents. And there is no consideration for justice or the law,” Al-Qaradawi continued in his statement. Hundreds of Morsi supporters were killed in August 2013 during the dispersal of the Rabaa and Al-Nahda sit-ins in Cairo and clashes with the security forces at Nasr City's Manassa Memorial and the Republican Guard headquarters. Islamist attacks on security personnel since Morsi's ouster have left hundreds of police and army soldiers and officers dead. Al-Qaradawi said in a phone call on the Rabaa channel that he could not have been involved in the storming of prisons in 2011, given his age of 88 and his health situation, which means he can only travel with the help of a companion. The Muslim preacher is the chief of the International Union of Muslim Scholars, a Qatari-based union of Muslim academics from across the Islamic world. The union recently launched a campaign entitled “Al-Qaradawi is not a terrorist” to support him on social media. Official relations between Egypt and Qatar have deteriorated since Morsi's ouster. Doha, which enjoys close relations with the Muslim Brotherhood, criticised the ouster and allowed many Brotherhood members to take refuge in the Gulf nation. However, Qatar asked a number of Brotherhood members to leave the country in September, following pressure from other Gulf States to stop supporting the Islamists. Egypt's presidency said in late November that it welcomed efforts by the Gulf Cooperation Council to mediate a reconciliation between Cairo and Doha. Police targeted UNIDENTIFIED assailants shot and killed a policeman and injured two others in the Nile Delta city of Sharqiyya on Tuesday, state news agency MENA reported. The three were in a security patrol on the highway to Cairo. They approached a suspect car on the roadside and were shot by the people inside. The assailants fled the scene. It was not clear whether it was a terrorist or criminal attack.
