By Amr Ghonema
A Suez court has sentenced those convicted of the murder of Ahmed Eid, a student in the faculty of engineering in Suez, to 15 years with hard labour. The victim’s father has undertaken a sit-in in protest at the leniency of the court’s ruling.
Waleed Bayoomi (28), Antar Abdulnabi (26) and Magdi Farouq (33) were sentenced to 15 years after being arrested in July for stabbing Ahmed Eid in the leg, leading to his death 6 days later in hospital. The three men claimed to have been provoked.
After the court’s decision Hessien Eid (56), the father of the victim, said that the ruling was unfair and that he will take the case to the Supreme Justice Court. He committed to perform a sit-in and a hunger strike to raise awareness of the case.
Before the ruling Ahmed Kelani, Osama Khalil, and Ashraf Abbas, lawyers for the victim, said that according to Article 86 of the Egyptian constitution “the punishment for premeditated murder is death by hanging, and that is what we expect the court to rule.”
Waheed Fouad, the attorney representing Antar said that “the stabbing was unintended and it occurred accidentally. It happened due to the aggression between the convicted and the deceased.”
Youssef Ghoneim, the defence attorney for Farouq, told the court that the cause of death was not because of the injuries sustained, but because of the poor care Eid received from the hospital he was admitted to.
The victim’s attorneys stated that “those three belong to a secret terror organization and they always drive around in their motorcycles to terrorize civilians, especially women, with either foul language or aggressive behavior. So they should be punished and made an example for all those who attempt to perform such stunts.”
Additional reporting by Ahmed Mansour
