A Cairo criminal court sentenced Egyptian TV presenter Sarah Khalifa and 11 other defendants to death by hanging on Tuesday in a drug-trafficking case that swept up 28 people in all. The same ruling gave nine defendants life terms and acquitted seven others.
The decision puts Khalifa at the center of one of the most severe verdicts handed down in Cairo in recent memory. The court said the case involved an organised network accused of manufacturing and trafficking drugs, and prosecutors alleged that Khalifa provided funds and traveled abroad to meet two of the men identified as leaders of the group.
Those two men, Iraqi national Duraid Abdul Latif Al-Samarrai and Egyptian national Sameh M., were listed as fugitives after investigators linked them to the alleged network. In the same proceedings, the court also sentenced Khalifa and the other defendants to five years in prison each in a separate kidnapping and assault case involving a young man.
Before issuing the capital verdict, the New Cairo Criminal Court received the opinion of Egypt’s Grand Mufti. That opinion is required by Egyptian law in capital cases, but it is advisory rather than binding, which is why the death sentences remain a first-instance ruling subject to appeal.
That leaves the case open even after the court’s sharpest punishment. The death sentences are not final, and the next stage will determine whether the verdicts against Khalifa and the other defendants hold or are reduced on appeal.
