Egypt hangs five prisoners days after mass execution

CORRECTION: The African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights had previously called on the Egyptian authorities to not carry out the executions of the four men in March 2016 and July 2017 due to concerns about all four men having been subject to torture, unfair trials, and arbitrary detention after a communication was filed by their lawyer, Dalia Ahmed Lotfy.

Egyptian prison authorities executed five inmates on Tuesday who had been sentenced to death, four of them over a bombing that killed military cadets, security officials said.

The hangings came days after the execution of 15 inmates convicted of attacking police and the military in the largest mass execution in Egypt in recent memory.

The executions were carried out despite a request from the African Commission of Peoples and Human Rights asking Egypt to suspend the sentences pending its investigation into their lawfulness.

The commission, Africa’s highest human rights body, acted following a complaint submitted by the Egyptian Freedom & Justice Party (FJP) on behalf of detainees who had their death sentences confirmed and are without further rights of appeal.

The complaint alleges that the sentences had been imposed following a legal process falling far below the standard expected under international and Egyptian law.

Four of those executed on Tuesday had been sentenced to death by a military court over a 2015 the bombing at a stadium north of Cairo that killed three military cadets.

The fifth had been sentenced to death over a criminal matter, the sources said without elaborating.

The commission had previously called on the Egyptian authorities to not carry out the executions of the four men in March 2016 and July 2017 due to concerns about all four men having been subject to torture, unfair trials, and arbitrary detention after a communication was filed by their lawyer, Dalia Ahmed Lotfy.

On 26 December, prison authorities hanged 15 inmates sentenced to death by a military court over attacks on the police and military in the Sinai Peninsula.

Attacks by militants in the restive peninsula have killed hundreds of policemen and soldiers since Morsi's overthrow.

Courts have since sentenced hundreds of Islamists to death, although most have appealed the rulings and won retrials.