CAIRO, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- Egypt's Court of Cassation upheld on Thursday a five-year prison sentence against a top ranking police officer for the unintended murder of 37 supporters of ousted Islamist President Mohamed Morsi in 2013.
The sentence against Lieutenant Colonel Omar Farouq cannot be appealed, official Ahram Online website reported.
Three other co-defendants in the case received one-year suspended sentences in 2015.
The case dates back to August 2013, when police shot tear gas into the back of the police van transporting suspects to Abu Zaabal prison in Qalyubia, north of Cairo.
The incident took place days after security forces broke up protest camps by Morsi supporters in Cairo and Giza on 14 August.
Prosecutors said at the time that 45 prisoners were being held in the transport van, which was not suited to carry more than 24 people.
The interior ministry said at the time that the prisoners were trying to escape from the vehicle, and that they had taken a police officer hostage. However, prosecutors later said there had been no escape attempt.
Morsi, currently in jail, was overthrown by the military in July 2013 after a mass protest against his one-year reign and his Brotherhood group. His ouster and detention were followed by a massive security crackdown against his loyalists, which left about 1,000 of them killed and thousands more arrested.
Since Morsi's removal, terrorist activities mounted in the most populous Arab country, leaving hundreds of police and army personnel killed in anti-government attacks carried out by extremists, self-proclaimed Islamists.
The new leadership under former military chief and now President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi blacklisted the Brotherhood as "a terrorist organization" after a number of anti-government blasts since Morsi's ouster.
