Outrage as boy, 4, is sentenced to life in PRISON for four ‘murders’ he is accused of committing aged one

Ahmed Mansour Karni was also convicted of eight attempted murders

All 115 defendants, including four-year-old Ahmed Mansour Karni, were handed life sentences for serious crimes said to have taken place in early 2014

By JOHN HALL

A FOUR-year-old boy has been sentenced to life in prison for crimes he is said to have committed before his second birthday.
Ahmed Mansour Karni had been listed as “wanted” by Egyptian police, accused of four murders, eight attempted murders and damaging state property.
The case has sparked outrage in Cairo, where lawyer Mohammed Abu Hurira said: “There is no justice in Egypt... [The country] is ruled by a bunch of lunatics.”
It remains unclear how Ahmed was convicted in a trial that had 115 defendants.
All of the defendants were handed life sentences for serious crimes said to have taken place in early 2014.
One theory is that Ahmed may share his name with an older relative and that the wrong birth certificate was handed over to police.
The child was then put on trial and found guilty in absentia, without officials stopping to realise that he was less than two-years-old when the offences were committed.

It is not the first time the ability of Egypt's courts have been called into question as President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi (pictured) cracks down on dissent in the country Reuters

The case is hugely embarrassing for Egypt - not least because it raises serious questions over the fairness and competence of the country's justice system.
Ahmed’s defence attorney, Faisal al-Sayd, told the Jerusalem Post: “This proves that the judge did not read the case”.
It is not the first time the ability of Egypt’s courts have been called into question.
In 2014 Cairo judges sentenced two Hamas members to be executed, despite them both having been dead for years.