The founder of an Egyptian publishing house was sentenced to five years in prison for distributing an Arabic version of a controversial Israeli novel, his brother said on Tuesday.

Egypt on Sunday released from jail a former military chief of staff arrested in 2018 after he tried to challenge President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in a presidential election, a senior official said.

A military court on Sunday handed the leading terrorist Hisham Al-Ashmawi a death sentence over his involvement in the Al-Farafra Oasis shootout case, according to a military statement.

An Egyptian military court sentenced on Sunday a Libyan defendant to death over his involvement in the 2017 terrorist operation in a desert area near the capital Cairo that killed 16 policemen, Egypt’s state-run Al-Ahram news website reported.

Egypt is “fully prepared” to face all the accusations it expects will be brought against it at the Universal Periodic Review session scheduled to be held at the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva on Wednesday, according to a government official in Cairo.

The Military Criminal Court on Sunday referred Libyan terrorist Abdel Rahem Mohammed al-Mesmary’s case to Egypt’s Grand Mufti Shawky Allam, to gather his religious opinion on executing Mesmary for his involvement in the “Al-Wahat Incident”, which left 16 police officers dead.

The Military Criminal Court in the Tora region decided on Monday to postpone the trial of 555 defendants in the media case known as the ‘Second Sinai Province’ on charges of establishing 43 Islamic State (IS) affiliated cluster cells and committing 63 crimes in north Sinai.

The day after a set of controversial constitutional amendments were approved in a national referendum in April, the Minister of Justice sent three laws to the heads of Egypt’s judicial bodies.

On June 6, Parliament approved two laws that regulate how the heads of Egypt’s top judicial bodies are selected, granting the president greater powers over the appointment process. The laws were approved by a two-thirds majority.

A military court in Egypt rejected Tuesday the appeals in the bombing of three churches. It upheld the death sentences of 20 convicts, life sentence of 17, 15-year imprisonment for one and 10-year for another.