Egypt court recommends execution for priest killer

An Egyptian court sought on Wednesday the non-binding opinion of the top Islamic religious authority on the execution of a man who killed a Coptic priest at one of Cairo districts last month, official MENA news agency reported.

The report said the court faced Ahmed Saeed with the prosecution's charge of premeditated murder against priest Samaan Shehata and the man confessed it.

On Oct. 12, the man assaulted the priest's head with a cleaver then stabbed him and fled the scene at Al-Marg poor neighborhood northeastern Cairo, but the police later arrested him.

In mid-July, a 24-year-old Muslim man, now in custody, wounded a security guard with a blade at a church in the seaside city of Alexandria for not letting him in. It is the same church where a terror blast back on 2011 Christmas eve killed at least 24 and wounded about 90 Copts.

Terror attacks rose in Egypt after the mid-2013 military removal of former Islamist President Mohamed Morsi in response to mass protests against his one-year rule and his currently-outlawed Muslim Brotherhood group.

Most of the attacks have been claimed by a Sinai-based group loyal to the regional Islamic State (IS) terrorist group, which started to expand terror operations to target the Coptic Christian minority in the country.

In late May, IS claimed responsibility for shooting dead at least 30 Copts heading to visit a monastery on the desert highway in Upper Egypt's Minya province.

Earlier in April, the IS-claimed bombings at two churches in Gharbiya and Alexandria northern provinces killed at least 47 and wounded over 120.

A similar suicide bombing at a Cairo church in December 2016 killed at least 29 worshippers, mostly women and children.

source: Xinhua