An Egyptian court on Thursday acquitted Al Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri’s brother of charges of forming a “terrorist group” but ordered an investigation into a speech he made in court.
Mohamed al-Zawahiri was arrested in August 2013 at the height of a campaign of repression of Islamists in the wake of the army’s ouster of the country’s Islamist president Mohamed Morsi.
He and dozens of other defendants were accused of having formed “a terrorist group linked to Al Qaeda” and plotting attacks on government installations, security forces and Egypt’s Christian minority — all charges which defence lawyers denied.
On Thursday, the court acquitted Zawahiri of the charges but it upheld earlier death sentences handed down to 10 co-defendants.
Those convicted were found guilty of “joining a terrorist group, inciting the killing of police and army officers and attacking police and government buildings”.
Thirty-nine other defendants were handed prison terms ranging from one year to life in jail, which in Egypt runs to 25 years, while 15 defendants were acquitted.
