CAIRO, 26 March 2004 — An Egyptian court yesterday sentenced three Britons, a Palestinian and eight Egyptians to five years in prison for belonging to a banned party.
The high state security court sentenced another 14 Egyptians to between one and three years for belonging to the same party, the Hizb Al-Tahrir. The court’s verdicts cannot be appealed, though President Hosni Mubarak must ratify them.
The defendants, all wearing white and held in a cage, denounced the sentence as unjust.
Sentenced to five years in prison were 12 people, including the three Britons, one Egyptian who was tried in his absence as well as one Palestinian, Anas Yunes, a 21-year-old dentistry student from east Jerusalem.
Seven were given three-year jail terms, and the remainder sentenced to a year.
Montaser Al-Zayat, an Islamist lawyer who represented the 26 who were arrested in April 2002, told reporters “these are very harsh sentences, especially because there is no appeal.”
