Egypt postpones verdict for al-Qaeda leader's brother

An Egyptian court sentenced 10 defendants who allegedly formed a “terrorist group linked to al-Qaeda” to death on Monday.

As is customary, the decision has been referred to Egypt’s top religious authority, the Grand Mufti, to give his approval.

The opinion of the mufti is not binding but Egyptian law makes it necessary for judges to seek a religious point of view on any death sentence.

The defendants are part of a group of 68 people being tried on charges of forming an al-Qaeda-linked cell, including Mohammed al-Zawahiri, the brother of al-Qaeda’s leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri.

Mohammed al-Zawahiri was not among the sentenced defendants. His verdict was postponed until 27 September.

Zawahiri was arrested in August 2013 at the height of a campaign of repression against Islamists in the wake of the army’s toppling of the country’s first democratically elected president Mohamed Morsi.

He and the other 67 co-defendants have been accused of plotting attacks on government installations, security forces and Egypt’s Christian minority, according to a court official. His lawyer denied all the charges.

Zawahiri is charged specifically with forming the group, arming its members and arranging training in the manufacture and use of explosives. Group members allegedly trained at secret camps in districts of Cairo and the Nile Delta, north of the capital.

The 10 who were sentenced to death were charged for “joining a terrorist group, inciting the killing of police and army officers and attacking police and government buildings".

Thirteen of the defendants are on the run and are being tried in absentia.

Meanwhile, Egypt's interior ministry said that a prominent leader of a group that had backed the ousted Morsi had died in jail in Cairo.

Essam Derbala, the senior leader of Gamaa Islamiya, died on Saturday after returning from a hearing at his trial, the ministry said.

“While being taken to the hospital he started bleeding from the nose, and suffered low blood pressure and breathlessness that led to his death,” it said in a statement.

The 58-year-old was arrested in May on charges of inciting violence and joining a pro-Morsi opposition alliance.

A medical check-up revealed that Derbala had a fever, low blood pressure and diabetes, and that he had also suffered from previous strokes.

In a statement of their own, Gamaa Islamiya blamed the prison authorities for his death, accusing them of “deliberately killing Derbala by depriving him of his medicine over the past few months".

“We hold the political and security apparatus responsible for his death,” the statement continued.

In other news, a bomb exploded near a courthouse in eastern Cairo on Sunday, injuring three people including two policemen.

An explosive device went off inside a traffic sentry post near the courthouse in Heliopolis district, injuring two traffic officers and a civilian, the source told Anadolu Agency.

According to the source, another bomb was defused by bomb disposal experts in the area.

There has been no comment from Egyptian authorities on the attack.