CAIRO (AP) — An Egyptian courtroom is asking the nation’s prime mufti, the best non secular authority for Islam, to weigh in on the case of a person accused of stabbing to dying a Coptic Christian priest, the main decide within the trial introduced Wednesday.
A choice from Grand Mufi Shawky Allam on whether or not the suspect must be given the dying penalty and executed is a non-binding opinion, however it may well considerably affect the courtroom’s ruling.
The 56-year-old priest, Arsanious Wadid, was killed at a well-liked seaside promenade within the Mediterranean metropolis of Alexandria final month in an assault that shocked the Arab world’s most populous nation.
The prosecution has sought the dying penalty for Nehru Tawfiq, 60, charged with intentionally killing the priest and with the unlawful possession of a knife used within the assault.
Tawfiq’s trial started on Saturday earlier than the prison courtroom in Alexandria. He appeared within the docks — which in Egyptian courtrooms are situated in a caged-off part of the room — shouting “God is best” in Arabic, and trying to recite verses from the Quran, the Muslim holy e-book, earlier than the judges ordered him to maintain silent.
In efforts to acquire a lesser sentence, his legal professionals argued that it was not a deliberate killing. The trial resumed on Wednesday with the prosecutions arguments in a listening to livestreamed by native media shops.
Main Choose Wahid Sabry mentioned he was referring the case to the grand mufti for his opinion, although the decide can rule independently. The decision is due June 11. It may be appealed earlier than a better courtroom.
The assault was the most recent sectarian violence in Egypt. Islamic extremists have additionally repeatedly focused Christians lately, particularly after the 2013 army ouster of late Islamist President Mohammed Morsi, an elected however divisive chief, amid mass protests in opposition to his rule.
In September 2017, an alleged supporter of the militant Islamic State group stabbed to dying an 82-year-old Christian physician in Cairo. He was sentenced to dying the next 12 months.
Egyptian Copts — the Center East’s largest Christian neighborhood — account for about 10% of the nation’s 103 million individuals and repeatedly complain of discrimination by the hands of the Muslim majority.