CAIRO — A court in Egypt on Sunday sentenced eight
foreigners and two Egyptians to death on charges of smuggling in over 2 tonnes
of heroin by sea, a judicial source said.
اضافة اعلان
Authorities seized the drugs brought in via the Red Sea,
worth around 2.5 billion pounds ($159 million), in 2019.
Seven Pakistanis, two Egyptians, and an Iranian were
convicted for having stashed the
drugs, also including nearly 100kg of crystal
methamphetamine, in a hidden storage room aboard a ship, the source added,
without giving details on where the shipment originated.
Capital punishment for civilian convicts in Egypt, the Arab
world's most populous country, is carried out by hanging.
The ruling can be appealed within two months.
Human rights groups have routinely slammed Egypt's
"significant spike" in recorded executions, which saw a more than
threefold rise to 107 last year, from 32 in 2019.
Egypt carries out the world's third highest number of executions,
after China and Iran, according to Amnesty International.
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