CAIRO, Aug. 8 (Xinhua) -- An Egyptian criminal court sentenced on Wednesday 45 people to death over killing three people in an armed fight in the coastal province of Alexandria.
Four of them have been in custody while the other 41 were sentenced in absentia, according to official MENA news agency.
The case dates back to 2012 when a massive fight erupted between two big families in which knives, guns and Molotov cocktails were used, leaving three dead.
The verdict is not final and still appealable.
Armed fights have been on the rise in Egypt over the past decades because of prevailing unlicensed guns and melee weapons mostly in slums and impoverished and remote areas.
Earlier this week, three people were killed in a gunfight between two families over a piece of land in the New Valley Province in southwestern Egypt.
