CAIRO: An Egyptian criminal court on Monday sentenced 22 people to death after convicting them of storming a police station outside Cairo and killing an officer on July 3, 2013 — the day President Muhammad Mursi was overthrown.

The ruling was the latest action against alleged supporters of Mursi, whose Muslim Brotherhood group faced government crackdown after it was banned and declared a terrorist organization.

Mursi himself faces a verdict on Tuesday over accusations he was responsible for the killing of protesters while president. The ruling will be the first in several ongoing trials against him.

The Giza court said eight of the condemned were sentenced in absentia on charges that included murder, attempted murder, possession of unlicensed firearms, destruction of property and vandalism. The ruling, which can be appealed, also sentenced a minor involved in the case to 10 years.

The attack took place in Kerdasa, a restive town west of Cairo considered a militant stronghold and where gunmen and rampaging crowds have killed policemen in other acts of violence. In the largest incident, 11 policemen were killed and their bodies mutilated in August 2013. That September, gunmen killed a police general during a raid.

Also Monday, a roadside bomb hit an armored vehicle in the northern Sinai Peninsula, killing three soldiers, Egypt’s official news agency said. MENA said the attack was carried out by extremists early in the day near the border town of Rafah. The team in the armored vehicle was searching for explosives.

In another development, a Cairo court on Monday sentenced an Armenian belly dancer to six months in jail for "insulting" Egypt's national flag during a performance last year, a judicial official said.

The dancer, widely known as Safinaz, was also fined 15,000 Egyptian pounds (about $1,960), but has been released on bail pending appeal.

Safinaz went on trial for wearing a costume that resembled the tricolored Egyptian flag during a performance last year in the Red Sea resort town of Ain Sokhna.