Drive-by shooter of Copts sentenced to death

CAIRO (nytimes.com) — An Egyptian court sentenced a Muslim man to death Sunday for killing six Christians and a Muslim police guard outside a church in a drive-by shooting more than a year ago.

The ruling comes at a time of growing fear and fury among Egypt’s minority Coptic Christian population after the recent bombing outside a church in Alexandria, during New Year’s Eve Mass, that killed 22 people and wounded more than 90.

The bombing sent thousands of angry Copts rioting in the streets and criticizing the government as failing to protect them or to hold anyone accountable for the crimes against them, including the shooting, which took place in the town of Nag Hammadi.

On Sunday, an Egyptian state security court, amid heavy protection, convicted Mohamed Ahmed Hassanein, more commonly known as Hamam el-Kamouny, 39, for the “premeditated murder” of the seven people who were killed during the shooting last January, as well as for the “attempted murder” of nine others who were wounded.

The court has not yet ruled in the case of the two other defendants accused of having accompanied and assisted Mr. Hassanein.

It is not clear to what extent Sunday’s verdict, which cannot be appealed, will help placate Egypt’s Coptic community. Just last Tuesday a Muslim off-duty police officer boarded a train and shot dead a 71-year-old Christian man while wounding five others. Egyptian officials said the shooting was not religiously motivated, but did not provide an alternative explanation.

Egypt’s Muslim majority and Christian minority have a long history of peaceful coexistence and a deep sense of national identity that continues to unite them. But the recent rise in religious fervor, especially among Muslims, in Egypt and around the region has strained relations between both groups and led to sporadic eruptions of violence.

There are no official statistics on the size of the Christian minority in Egypt, but it is generally accepted that they make up about 10 percent of the population.

The magnitude of the attack on the church in Alexandria raised new fears regarding Egypt’s stability if its Copts continued to feel threatened.