Egyptian 4-year-old faces life sentence and military court

A Cairo court has sentenced a four-year-old boy to life in prison earlier this week, for various charges including murder.

The bizarre decision came after the boy, Ahmed Mansour Karni, was listed as 'wanted' for murder, disturbance of the peace and damaging state property.

In the same indictment, 115 others were also handed the same sentence for involvement in violence at a protest in the province of Fayoum.

At the time of the incident, which took place in 2014, the boy was barely older than two years of age when he allegedly killed four people and attempted to commit another eight murders.

Karni was not present at the trial, and was sentenced in absentia for his alleged crimes.

Speaking to Egyptian news site Masralarabia.com, one of the defence lawyers involved in the case, claimed that the boy's case was still passed on to the military court, despite his birth certificate (pictured below) having been presented to Egyptian security forces for review during the initial trial.

"This proves that the judge did not read the case," said defence lawyer Faisal al-Sayad.
                                                        
Another Egyptian Lawyer, Mohamed Abu Hurira, said, "There is is no justice in Egypt. No reason. Logic committed suicide a while ago. Egypt went crazy. Egypt is ruled by a bunch of lunatics."

Egypt has come under heavy criticism for its mass trials of protesters, political activists and journalists following the military coup of 2013, with around 40,000 opposition supporters currently serving time in the country's prisons.