ISMAILIYA: An Egyptian court sentenced three Syrian men to death by hanging on Tuesday for trafficking heroin and opium, a court official told AFP.
Two of the men were arrested in the Suez Canal town of Ismailiya in July when police found 25 kg of the drugs in their truck.
The official said the haul had a wholesale value of LE 25 million pounds ($4.5 million).
A third Syrian was sentenced in absentia after the pair told police he had told them to drive the truck.
The truck, with Kuwaiti plates, arrived by ferry at the Sinai port of Nuweiba from Aqaba in Jordan.
The men have two weeks to appeal against the verdict before Egypt s supreme court, although death penalties are rarely commuted.
Egypt applies the death penalty infrequently. The London-based rights group Amnesty International says that only one person was executed in 2007. -AFP
