Egyptian authorities executed a Coptic Christian monk on Sunday who was convicted for the 2018 killing of the abbot of an ancient desert monastery, according to AFP. In 2020 an Egyptian court confirmed the death sentence for the monk Isaiah, whose original name is Wael Saad Tawadros, over the killing of Bishop Epiphanius. The monk was hanged.
The abbot of the Saint Macarius monastery in the plains of Wadi al-Natrun, northwest of the capital Cairo, was found after being bludgeoned to death in July 2018. The case shocked the Middle East’s largest religious minority.
Coptic Christians make up about 10-15 percent of Egypt’s predominantly Sunni Muslim population of over 100 million, and the country’s vast deserts are home to some of Christianity’s oldest monasteries.
Prosecutors said Wael Tawadros confessed to beating the abbot with a metal bar as the second monk kept watch. Authorities blamed the killing on unspecified “differences” between the bishop and the two monks.
Video footage of court sessions shared on social media reveal a sobbing Tawadros, accusing his interrogators of stripping him naked and torturing him physically and psychologically.
Stop the Death Penalty Egypt, a local advocacy group calling for the end of capital punishment in Egypt said that its pleas to President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to revoke the verdict and pardon the monk had been ignored.
“The (monks’) trial was marred by discrepancies, violations and forced confessions taken under duress,” the group said in a statement on social media.
Amnesty International has noted “a significant spike” in recorded executions in Egypt, with a rise to 107 in 2020, up from 32 in 2019.
“It is extremely concerning that it (the death penalty) is used after unfair trials, with courts routinely relying on torture-tainted ‘confessions’,” it added.