CAIRO, Sept 25, 2012 (AFP)
CAIRO, Sept 25, 2012 (AFP)
An Egyptian court on Tuesday sentenced three suspected radical Islamists to 15 years in prison for the murder of a young man sitting in a park with a girl, the official news agency MENA reported.
A trial in the northeastern town of Suez that was heavily guarded by police ruled that the men were complicit in the killing of local engineering student Ahmad Hussein Eid, MENA said.
The prosecution charged that they had formed a vigilante group to attack people not adhering to their own religious principals but the three men denied the accusation.
The men had reportedly approached Eid and a young woman and berated them for being together in the park without being married. A fight broke out during which Eid was grievously wounded. He later died in hospital.
The episode has stirred up an emotional reaction in Egypt, with people fearing the emergence of self-proclaimed vigilante groups policing moral values.
