The Islamic Hamas movement on Saturday slammed an Egyptian court's death sentence against its members, who are imprisoned in Israeli jails or killed in the last conflict with Israel.
The decision of the Egyptian court "was shocking and regretful", Sami Abu Zuhri, Hamas spokesman in Gaza, said in a statement, adding that "it is based on wrong and false information and data", Xinhua news agency reported.
Earlier in the day, the Cairo Criminal Court issued preliminary death sentences against ousted Egyptian Islamist President Mohammed Morsi and 105 other defendants, including members of the Hamas movement, in the case publicly known as the "Wadi al-Natron jailbreak", accusing them of breaking into prisons, and kidnapping and killing police officers.
Abu Zuhri said some of the Hamas members who were sentenced to death by the Egyptian court had been killed by Israel before the breakout of the mass Egyptian demonstrations against the former Egyptian regime in 2011 or have been imprisoned in Israeli jails for so many years.
"Tayeseer Abu Snimah and Husam al-Sane'a were killed by Israel during the three-week Israeli war waged on the Gaza Strip in 2010," Abu Zuhri added.
The relationship between Hamas and Egypt deteriorated after the ouster of Morsi in 2013. Egypt accused Hamas militants of participating in the unrest and turmoil in Egypt in the past couple of years.
