Egypt rejects UN statements on executions

CAIRO (AA): Egypt on Sunday rejected statements by UN human rights officials about recent executions of nine youths in connection with the assassination of the country’s attorney-general.

“Egypt expresses complete rejection of any sort of interfering in the Egyptian judiciary,” the Egyptian Foreign Ministry said in a statement carried by Egypt’s flagship Al-Ahram daily newspaper.

The statement followed calls by the spokesperson of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and a group of special rapporteurs of the Human Rights Council for halting the executions.

“The verdicts came after lengthy trial sessions in which all defendants were granted fair trials,” the ministry asserted.

On Wednesday, Egyptian authorities executed nine youths convicted of assassinating Prosecutor-General Hisham Barakat in 2015, according to local media.

Barakat was killed in June 2015 in Cairo when a car bomb struck his convoy.

The death sentence were carried out despite calls by international human rights organizations – including Amnesty International – for the Egyptian authorities to halt the executions.

In February, Egyptian authorities executed six people in two different cases for killing the son of a judge and a senior police officer.

Egypt was roiled by turmoil when the military deposed Mohamed Morsi, the country’s first freely elected president, in a 2013 coup.