CAIRO: Egyptian authorities executed nine people Monday over the storming of a police station in 2013 in which 13 policemen were killed, a security source said.

The executions took place “this morning”, the source told AFP. Capital punishment for civilian convicts in Egypt, the most populous Arab country, is carried out by hanging.

The raiding of the Kerdasa police station, in the southern outskirts of the capital Cairo, took place on August 14, 2013.

Over 180 people were initially sentenced to death over the incident, though many later had their convictions reduced on appeal.

Those executed Monday were part of a group of 20 people whose death sentences were upheld in 2018.

The security source did not specify the fate of the other 11.

Rights group Amnesty International said one of those executed Monday was an 82-year-old man.

The executions were “a chilling demonstration of the Egyptian authorities’ disregard for the right to life and their obligations under international law”, Amnesty’s Philip Luther said in a statement.