Egyptian court sentences presenter Sarah Khalifa and 11 others to death

A Cairo court has sentenced television presenter Sarah Khalifa and 11 other defendants to death in a drug manufacturing and trafficking case, Euronews reported on September 7. Its account drew on Egyptian state-media reports published on Saturday. The verdict can be appealed, so the development is a sentencing decision rather than a report of executions.

Euronews reported that the convictions included organising a criminal group to obtain materials for drug production and offences involving unlicensed firearms and ammunition. The court sought the Grand Mufti’s opinion before issuing the sentences. These details are attributed to the news report; the institutional documents reviewed for this article address Egypt’s general legal framework and do not independently authenticate this case.

Appeals and safeguards

Egypt set out its position on capital punishment in a submission to the UN Human Rights Committee distributed on April 2, 2026. The government said death sentences require unanimous judicial decisions and consultation with the Grand Mufti. It also described mandatory referral to the Court of Cassation as a safeguard intended to review procedure, evidence and respect for defence rights.

That submission represents the Egyptian government’s account of its system. It is relevant to understanding the review process, but cannot establish whether each safeguard was correctly applied to Khalifa or her co-defendants. Nor does the existence of an appeal route predict the eventual outcome. A later ruling could uphold or alter the sentences, and would need to be reported on its own evidence.

A longstanding international disagreement

The Human Rights Committee’s concluding observations, distributed in April 2023, raised concerns about Egypt’s use of capital punishment for offences that did not meet the international threshold for the most serious crimes. The committee urged protections including access to legal assistance, exclusion of evidence obtained through torture or coercion, and availability of pardon or commutation in every case.

The new verdict therefore sits within a documented disagreement over the scope and safeguards of capital punishment. The committee’s observations are longstanding recommendations, not a fresh UN response to this prosecution. Keeping that distinction clear avoids suggesting that international investigators have examined the evidence against these defendants or issued findings about their trial.

The next development to watch is the legal challenge to the verdict and any reasoned decision from the reviewing courts. Until then, the confirmed news is the reported imposition of appealable death sentences. Broader assessments of Egyptian justice provide context, but neither substitute for the case record nor settle the defendants’ individual grounds for appeal.