Egypt's Foreign Ministry has unreservedly rejected any prejudices by international human rights organisations over the execution of nine prisoners convicted of the 2015 assassination of Egypt's former Prosecutor General, Hisham Barakat. In a Sunday statement, the ministry specifically commented on the statement of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) regarding the execution. The statement pointed out that the execution sentence came after long trials which were characterised by impartiality and justice, emphasising the independence of the Egyptian judiciary which is based on international standards. The statement further rejected claims of "extracting confessions from prisoners", calling on such organisations to carefully read the reasons behind the judgment in order to recognise how Egypt's judiciary is committed to national and international standards. Earlier on Friday, the OHCHR appealed to the Egyptian authorities "to halt all executions" insisting that "trials must meet the highest standards of fairness and due process to prevent miscarriages of justice.” The OHCHR spokesperson, Rupert Colville, said in the statement that "All of them (the accused) had claimed before the courts that they had disappeared, or detained incommunicado for prolonged periods, and were subjected to torture in order to make them confess to the crimes." The nine prisoners were among the 28 who were sentenced to death in 2017, for a car bomb attack on Barakat in front of his house in Cairo. Egypt's Prisons Authority executed them on Wednesday.
