Killers of Tourists Get Death Sentence

A former inmate of a mental hospital and his brother were sentenced to death for killing nine German tourists and their Egyptian driver in a Sept. 18 attack that the military judge called the work of “Satan reincarnated.” The men, who had pleaded guilty to the attack outside Cairo’s Egyptian Museum, called the sentence a “day of feasts”--a reference to their belief that they will die as martyrs for Islam and go to heaven. Saber Farhat, the former patient, and his brother, Mahmoud, were charged with premeditated murder for shooting and fire-bombing a tourist bus parked outside the museum. Six of seven co-defendants were sentenced to one to 10 years in prison for helping the brothers acquire arms and ammunition for the attack. The six accused police of torturing them to extract false confessions. The government said the brothers are not linked to any Islamic group.