If you don’t keep a close eye on them, it’s no doubt that toddlers can get themselves into trouble. But that doesn’t mean they deserve prison time.
An Egyptian court accidentally sentenced a 3-year-old boy to life in prison, after a dreadful case of mistaken identity, and bad police work. The child, Ahmed Mansour Qorani, was named in a reported militia group, and was accused of killing three people, brandishing guns, and more.
Reports The Irish Times:
As alibis go, this one would seem to be airtight: Your honour, my client was only a year old at the time of the crime.
But it did not stop an Egyptian military court from convicting the accused, a boy now 3½, of killing three people, carrying guns and firebombs, blocking a road with burning tires, and trying to damage government buildings – and sentencing him to life in prison.
The verdict came last week in a mass trial of 107 people suspected of being members of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, and the charges stemmed from the protests, street clashes and police crackdowns in Egypt after the military overthrow of the elected Islamist president, Mohammed Morsi, in 2013. Hundreds of people were killed and thousands were jailed.
After an uproar over the conviction of the boy – Ahmed Mansour Qorani Sharara, who was never arrested – the military said that it was a case of mistaken identity, and that authorities had actually meant to try a 16-year-old student with the same name. The teenager is on the run, the military added in a post on its official Facebook page.
The alleged teenager authorities actually meant to charge, might be yet another error. A police spokesperson gave a conflicting report telling local media that the suspect was actually a 51-year-old uncle of the 3-year-old boy.
If you’re wondering about the wrongfully accused toddler, chances are he doesn’t care/understand that the Egyptian court system tried to get him caught up.
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Photo: screencap
