CAIRO, July 19 (Xinhua) -- An Egyptian court sentenced on Wednesday six Islamists belonging to the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood group up to 25 years in jail over terrorist charges.
They are accused of making a failed attempt in 2016 to assassinate a judge who issued several anti-Brotherhood death sentences.
Cairo Criminal Court sentenced four of the six defendants, including two fugitives, to 25 years in prison and the other two to 15 years. The verdicts can still be appealed.
The six have been accused of plotting anti-government attacks, assaulting government institutions, undermining social peace and attempting to murder judge Mutaz Khagfagi via a failed bomb attack on his house.
They were also convicted of joining an outlawed group, referring to the Brotherhood group that has been blacklisted as a terrorist organization after the military overthrow of former Islamist President Mohamed Morsi in July 2013 in response to mass protests.
Following Morsi's ouster and the later security crackdown on his loyalists that left hundreds dead and thousands arrested, angry Brotherhood members and supporters launched in August 2013 several attacks on government institutions and churches of the Coptic minority nationwide.
Most Brotherhood leaders, including Morsi and the group's top chief Mohamed Badie, are currently in custody and many of them received appealable death sentences and life imprisonments over various charges varying from inciting violence and murder to espionage and jailbreak.
On Monday, another criminal court sentenced eight Brotherhood members to death over an attack on a police station in Beheira province north of the capital Cairo. It also sentenced two other defendants to 25 years and 10 others to 10 years in jail.
Morsi himself is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence over inciting clashes between his supporters and opponents outside a presidential palace in late 2012 that left 10 people dead.
Since Morsi's removal, Egypt has been facing a rising wave of terrorism that left hundreds of police and military men dead, mostly claimed by a Sinai-based militant group loyal to the Islamic State (IS) regional terrorist group.
