Egypt upholds death penalty for 13 on 'terror' charges

Egypt's highest appeals court has upheld death sentences for 13 people convicted of terror charges over attacks in the capital in which explosive devices killed at least two police officers.

The Court of Cassation Tuesday upheld life sentences for 17 others and lesser sentences for another nine, all on similar charges.

The defendants were accused of attempting to kill policemen and civilians by planting explosive devices outside a university campus in December 2014 and a presidential palace the following month.

The attacks also wounded 12 people.

The initial sentences were handed down in 2017, with five others acquitted.

Egypt has come under international criticism in recent years for handing down mass death sentences, often on trumped up terror charges. Most such sentences have been tied up in the courts and never carried out.

February saw more than a dozen men hanged by the Egyptian authorities. Nine men were hanged despite urgent appeals and protests over the way they were found guilty of assassinating a public prosecutor in 2015.

President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, a former army chief who led the military in ousting the country's first freely elected president Mohamed Morsi, is accused of leading a relentless crackdown on both pro-democracy campaigners and Islamists.

Thousands of people, including many pro-democracy activists, have been arrested by authorities. Freedoms won in 2011, when mass protests ended President Hosni Mubarak's nearly three-decade rule, have been rolled back.

Recent amendments, approved by a nationwide referendum, will allow president Sisi to stay in power until 2030.

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