Egypt court gives prison terms to 19 individuals

Sixteen of the convicts were sentenced to 10 years behind bars, and the three children received three-year prison terms each, the al-Quds al-Arabi daily reported, quoting a source who asked not to be named.
 
They were found guilty of raiding a building in the city of Shubra in the north of Cairo Province, assaulting a civil servant and fomenting riots, according to the source.
 
They had staged a rally in late February 2014 in protest at the military coup that led to the overthrow of the first democratically-elected president of Egypt, Mohamed Morsi, in July 2013. They were arrested by security forces, and charges were later brought against them.
 
The military court also adjourned until late September the trials of another 28 individuals accused of opposing the government. Fifteen of them are currently behind bars.
 
They are charged with allegedly setting up a terrorist group, according to a judicial source.
 
Egyptian security forces said in July that they had apprehended members of what they called a “terrorist” group before it could launch an operation.
 
Last Thursday, an Egyptian court sentenced another 25 supporters of Morsi to life imprisonment, and 94 others to 10- to 15-year jail terms.
 
The court in the central city of Sohag convicted them on multiple allegations, including murder and an arson attack on a church in 2013 following the brutal police crackdown on pro-Morsi sit-in protests at Nahda and Rabaa squares in the capital, Cairo, local Ahram Online news outlet reported.
 
The coup that toppled Morsi was engineered by then head of the armed forces and current President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who has also initiated a violent crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood members and supporters. More than 1,400 people have been killed in the crackdown.
 
Morsi himself has been sentenced to death.