(By BBC)An Egyptian military court made a mistake by sentencing a four-year-old boy to life in prison for murder last week, the military has acknowledged.
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The four-year-old, Ahmed Mansour Qurani Ali, was one of 116 people convicted in connection with 2014 riots by supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood, the BBC says.
When agents arrived at his home and realized his age, they detained his father for four months instead.
According to CNN, Gen. Abu Bakr Abdel-Karim, an aide to the interior minister, told an Egyptian television network that “it was a case of mistaken identity” and that neither Ahmed nor his father would go to jail. But Ahmed’s mother said that police did ask her the location of Ahmed and his father.
This came after the court was presented with Ahmed’s birth certificate, which allegedly failed to transfer it to the judge, according to lawyer Faisal al-Sayd.
Officials later back-tracked, blaming the sentencing on a case of mistaken identity.
“We wanted to tell the judge that these are invalid investigations and our proof is the inclusion of the child and a man – who was out of the country when the incident in question took place – among the defendants”, Kaf added.
Mass arrests are fairly common in Egypt, with the courts charging hundreds of people involved in protests and street clashes at once.
In 2014, over a thousand were sentenced to death in two cases involving the deaths of two police officers during protests.
The father’s appearance on TV sparked uproar among social media users, prompting a military spokesman the next day to confirm that an “error” has occurred, and that the little boy’s name was wrongfully included among a list of defendants who were all given life sentence at a military court in Cairo.
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It’s not clear what will now happen to the four-year-old, the report said.
