A court in Egypt has issued a death sentence for a man who killed a Christian for selling alcohol in the city of Alexandria.
The court in the Mediterranean port city sentenced Adel Abu al-Nur el-Sayed to death on Thursday after the mufti, considered the official interpreter of Islamic law in Egypt, approved the ruling.
The 50-year-old man reportedly killed Youssef Lamei, a Coptic Christian, in Alexandria on January 2, according to the victim’s son.
The convict later told the court that he would kill all people selling alcohol if he could.
A security official said Sayed was present in the court session on Thursday. There was no report whether he would appeal the ruling.
Copt Christians make up between 6 to 18 percent of the population in Egypt of 90 million.
The minority group has been the target of attacks by extremists in the past.
On December 11, 2016, a bomb attack on a church in Cairo killed 29 people.
Daesh, a terrorist group based in Iraq and Syria, claimed the carnage and said that it would continue to target members of the community in Egypt and elsewhere.
The Velayat Sinai Takfiri terrorist group -- previously known as Ansar Beit al-Maqdis -- which pledged allegiance to Daesh in 2014, has been responsible for most of the attacks in the Sinai Peninsula as well as Cairo.
Militants from the terrorist group intensified their attacks after political developments in 2013, which resulted in the ouster of democratically-elected president Mohamed Morsi.
