CAIRO, Nov. 7 (Xinhua) -- Egypt's top court cancelled on Tuesday the execution verdict of one defendant and the 10-year jail sentences of six others and ordered their retrial over forming a terrorist cell to carry out anti-government activities, official MENA news agency reported.
The Court of Cassation accepted the appeals issued by the seven defendants against their conviction in September 2016 of forming a terrorist cell to carry out aggressive operations against the police, the military and the state institutions in Gharbiya province northern the capital Cairo.
The case dates back to November 2014 and it includes 13 defendants, eight in custody and five fugitives, who were referred to criminal court over the said charges.
In early September 2016, a criminal court sentenced four defendants including three fugitives to death, six detained defendants to 10 years in jail, two fugitives to 15 years in jail and acquitted a detained one.
The seven defendants in custody had appealed their convictions and the Court of Cassation on Tuesday canceled their verdicts and ordered their retrial.
Egypt has been battling a wave of terrorist activities since the military ousted former Islamist President Mohamed Morsi in early July 2013 in response to mass protests against his one-year reign and his now-outlawed Muslim Brotherhood group.
Later security crackdown on Morsi's supporters left hundreds dead and thousands arrested.
Most Brotherhood leaders, including Morsi and the group's top chief Mohamed Badie, are currently in custody and many of them received appealable death sentences and life imprisonments over various charges varying from inciting violence and murder to espionage and jailbreak.
Anti-government terrorist attacks since then have been centered in restive North Sinai province, killing hundreds of policemen and soldiers, before they prevailed nationwide and started to target dozens of the Coptic minority in the most populous Arab state.
Most of the terrorist attacks have been claimed by a Sinai-based group affiliated with the Islamic State (IS) regional terrorist group.
Meanwhile, the Egyptian military in cooperation with the police killed hundreds of militants and arrested a similar number of suspects as part of the country's anti-terror war declared by President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi, the army chief then, following Morsi's ouster.