CAIRO, Nov 5 (Aswat Masriya) - The Cairo Criminal Court sentenced two people arrested at the Salloum crossing with Libya to death for belonging to an armed group.

The court also sentenced four others to life in prison in the same case. Another defendant was sentenced to 15 years in a maximum security prison, and seven others were sentenced to three years in a maximum security prison.

Only two defendants in the case were acquitted out of the total 16 defendants.

In October, the court had issued a preliminary verdict and referred it to Egypt's Grand Mufti.

Former general prosecutor Hisham Barakat had referred the defendants to trial in February 2015, following their arrest near the Salloum border on their way back to Cairo.

They were charged with “participating in violent acts outside of the Egyptian borders, targeting institutions inside Egypt, belonging to an outlawed group.”

Death sentences in Egypt have sparked widespread controversy especially over the past three years when courts starting issuing mass death sentences over terrorism related charges.