EGYPT: COURT UPHOLDS DEATH SENTENCE AGAINST TODDLER RAPIST IN FINAL RULING

A high Egyptian appeals court has upheld a death sentence against a man for raping a 20-month-old girl last year, a judicial source said on 7 November 2018, in a final ruling in a case that provoked widespread public outcry.
The 35-year-old man was convicted of kidnapping and raping the toddler in a village in the Nile Delta governorate of Daqahliya. The man was arrested on the same day of the incident, which took place in March 2017.
The defendant was sentenced to death by a lower criminal court on 1 June after the Grand Mufti, the country's top religious authority, approved the court recommendation of the death penalty in non-binding but legally required opinion.
The Court of Cassation on 7 November rejected the defendant's appeal against the initial sentence, upholding the death penalty. The verdict is final and cannot be appealed.