Egypt's Cassation Court upheld on Sunday five and 10-year hard labour prison sentences for three individuals convicted of illegal assembly, using force, and torching Heliopolis metro cars during protests in the aftermath of the ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in 2013.

One individual received a sentence of five years hard labour, while the other two received ten-year sentences.

Verdicts from the Cassation Court, the highest criminal court in Egypt, are not subject to appeal.

The defendants were also convicted of damaging private property - cars that were parked in the area of the clashes - and of assaulting citizens.

According to CBC channel's reporting on 22 November 2013, the protestors were throwing Molotov cocktails at policemen near the above ground metro, which was accidentally hit.

The torched metro cars were located on Nozha Street in Heliopolis, in an incident which led to the temporary halting of trains between Almaza and Matariya.

Widespread protests were held that day in a number of governorates including Cairo, Giza, Damietta, Minya, and Suez, as violence was escalating following Morsi's ouster and the bloody dispersal of Rabaa and Al-Nahda sit-ins.

Two days later, the protest law was issued by interim president Adly Mansour, which banned protests without a permit.