CAIRO: An Egyptian military court yesterday handed a journalist a six-month suspended jail term for taking pictures of army checkpoints on the border with Gaza, military sources said. Mohammed Sabry is the third Egyptian journalist to be sentenced by military tribunals since the ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Mursi in July. Sabry was convicted by a military court in the Suez Canal city of Ismailiya, almost a month after the same court gave a similar sentence to another Egyptian journalist, Ahmed Abu Derra. Security officials said armed forces had arrested Sabry as he took pictures in the town of Rafah on the border with the Palestinian enclave. It was unclear when he was actually arrested. Sabry is a freelance journalist working for several Egyptian publications.
Israeli drone crashes in Gaza
GAZA CITY: An Israeli military unmanned drone crashed in the northern Gaza Strip yesterday, with Palestinians saying they shot it down but Israel blaming a technical malfunction. A security source from Hamas, the Islamist movement that rules Gaza, said they had “captured an Israeli drone that was flying over east Jabalia this morning.” He did not elaborate. But Hamas’s military wing, the Ezzedine Al Qassam Brigades, claimed on their Twitter account “responsibility for shooting down an #Israeli mini-drone”. The Israeli army denied the claim and said “a ‘Skylark’ tactical mini UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) system crashed earlier today in the Gaza Strip due to a technical malfunction.”
Saudi beheads citizen over murder
RIYADH: Saudi authorities yesterday beheaded a citizen in the southern Najran province after he was convicted of killing another man, the interior ministry said. Zafer Al Batheen shot dead Ayed Al Qashaneen using a machine gun, following a dispute between the two. His execution brings to 70 the number of people executed this year. Agencies
