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4-Year-Old Boy Sentenced To Life In Prison For Committing Murder

By Tara Dodrill
Published on: 05:14 PST, Feb 19, 2016

A four-year-old boy was sentenced to life in prison for committing murder when he was just 1-year-old. An Egyptian court convicted Ahmed Mansour Karmi on four counts of murder, eight counts of attempted murder, and one count each of vandalism and threatening soldiers.

Ahmed Mansour Karmi was convicted of committing that laundry list of violent crimes all before his second birthday. Karmi was one of 115 Egyptian defendants who were collectively given life sentences in a Cairo court.

Faisal al-Sayd, the defense attorney for the 4-year-old boy, staunchly maintains that child’s name was added to the list of accused murderers by mistake. All of the crimes the preschooler allegedly committed occurred in 2014. The Egyptian court system did not share Ahmed Mansour Karmi’s birth certificate with the judge before he passed sentence. The child was not present in the courtroom during the hearing, according to the Jerusalem Post.

“The child Ahmed Mansour Karni’s birth certificate was presented after state security forces added his name to the list of accused, but then the case was transferred to the military court and the child was sentenced in absentia in an ensuing court hearing. This proves that the judge did not read the case,” al-Sayd said.

Another Egyptian attorney, Mohammed Abu Huraira, weighed in on the case and claimed that there is no justice in the nation.

“Logic committed suicide a while ago. Egypt is ruled by a bunch of lunatics,” Huraira said, according to a report by MSN. “The Egyptian scales of justice are not reversible.”

Human rights activists took to social media to share the story about the 4-year-old boy and to remind the world that government dissidents are being jailed at what they feel is an alarming rate.

Ragia Omran, a human rights attorney, maintains that conditions inside Egyptian prisons are “extremely poor,” according to a report on the Free Thought Project.

“If we look at all the reports by independent and national and international human rights organizations on the use of extreme force, violence, torture, violations in prisons and especially in police stations has gone up,” Omran said.

Human Rights Watch wants multiple “abusive” laws enacted by both President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Adly Mansour. The group believes that such laws have banned all forms of protest, expanded the jurisdiction of military courts while decreasing the authority of civilian courts, legalized a host of “emergency” police powers, and caused thousands of citizens to be arrested and jailed.

In 2013, Mohamed Morsi was ousted at the nation’s leader. The country has been ruled by President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi ever since Morsi was removed from office. About 40,000 citizens are reportedly have been jailed under the regime due to an increased crackdown in dissenters.

“Egypt’s new legislators should embrace their role as a check on the harsh powers the country’s leaders have wielded since 2013,” Human Rights Watch East and North Africa Director Nadim Houry, said.

The 4-year-old being convicted of murder is not the only strange case heard in the past two years by an Egyptian court. In 2015, a blind man was sentenced to spend 15 years begin bars for shooting a police officer. Mustafa Youssef’s attorney said that his client was born blind and did not have the physical capacity to kill, burn, and loot businesses.

What do you think about the 4-year-old boy being sentenced to life in prison for committing murder when he was just an infant?

[Image via Shutterstock.com]

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