CAIRO: Egypt has executed seven people convicted of Islamist attacks in the past week, human rights activists said on Friday.

Three of those executed had been found guilty of a 2016 attack claimed by the Islamic State group that left dead eight policemen in Helwan, on Cairo’s southern outskirts, judicial and security sources told AFP.

Another four had been sentenced to death for attacks on police coordinated by the “Soldiers of Egypt”, a jihadist group that carried out attacks between 2014 and 2015, rights groups said.

Amnesty International says Egypt has handed down hundreds of death sentences, and that it carried out 107 in 2020 — the third highest in the world.

Friday’s report was “the first round of executions in the last six months”, a representative of Human Rights Watch said.