Egypt sentences 14 to death over 2011 Sinai terror attacks

Egypt sentenced 14 members of a terror group to death on Tuesday over two terror attacks in Sinai in June and July 2011.

The Ismailiya Criminal Court convicted the members of Jama’at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad terror group for an attack on an el-Arish police station and a Bank of Alexandria branch in northern Sinai that killed five policemen and a civilian.

Twenty-five Islamists were charged in total, 13 of whom were tried in absentia, Al-Ahram reported. The other 11 will be sentenced in September.

The 14 were also convicted of attempting to murder 12 other security guards who were in the vicinity of the bank and police station during the attacks and of stealing arms and ammunition. The country’s top religious cleric will now need to approve the executions.

Jama’at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad (Monotheism and Holy War), an al-Qaeda affiliated extremist group, has close ties to terror cells in Sinai.

The group is believed to have kidnapped and killed Italian activist Vittorio Arrigoni in Gaza in April 2011. Its leader, Abu Walid Al-Maqdisi, an Egyptian previously residing in Gaza whose real name is Hisham al-Saidni, was set free after some 17 months by Hamas in early August.

Israel believes he was the mastermind of three bombings in Dahab in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula that killed more than 20 people in 2006 and warned that his release could lead to more such attacks.

The verdict comes amid Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi’s crackdown on Islamist groups in Sinai after terrorists hijacked military carriers and attacked the Israeli-Gaza-Egyptian border, killing 16 soldiers, before being stopped by an Israel Air Force strike.