EGYPT. COURT SENTENCES TWO MEN FOR LEADING GANG OF ARMS TRAFFICKERS

an Egyptian state security criminal court sentenced two brothers to death on charges of leading a gang of arms dealers and drug-traffickers. The court also found Ezzat Hanafi and his brother Hamdan guilty of abducting dozens of people during a bloody and drawn out standoff with security forces in 2004 in the southern Egyptian village of Nekheila. The case involved a total of 77 defendants, 10 of whom were tried in absentia, but the court withheld the verdict against the remaining 75 until September 25, judicial sources said. They were all accused of drug-trafficking, abduction and resisting the authorities. Police had said Nekheila, located 400 kilometers (250 miles) south of the capital Cairo, was a haven for drug traffickers and arms dealers. Security forces laid siege to the village two weeks after the murder of five people in a feud between two families that had left over 20 dead in three years. Heavily armed security forces, backed up by armored vehicles, fought fierce battle with fugitives holed up in a compound in the village, as the suspects resisted arrest. The interior ministry said at the time that the fugitives set fire to more than a dozen homes in a bid to block the advance of security forces and took several hostages and threatened to kill them. The operation left many dead and injured on both sides.