Cairo Criminal Court on Monday sentenced two men to death on charges of forming a terrorist cell.

The first defendant was convicted of forming and leading a terrorist cell that aimed to prevent state organisations from doing their duties, attacking the personal freedom of citizens, harming national unity, and supplying money to individuals to execute terrorist attacks.

The second defendant was charged with joining the aforementioned terrorist cell, knowing their intentions of destroying and bombing state institutions, with the aim to spread terror and chaos in Giza’s Kerdasa district.

The court has referred the verdicts to the grand mufti, the country's most senior Muslim cleric, as per Egyptian law. The mufti's recommendation on the sentence will not be binding. 

The court will issue its final decision regarding the sentence on 4 July, and that decision may be appealed.

Earlier on Monday, Mansoura Criminal Court pronounced a final death sentence on a defendant convicted of terrorist cell. The initial death sentence in the case had already been referred to the grand mufti. the defendant may still appeal.

On Sunday, the Egyptian authorities executed six men who had been convicted of plotting terrorist attacks, while on Saturday, Cairo Criminal Court issued a preliminary death sentence on former Islamist president Mohamed Morsi and 105 other defendants in the trial known in the Egyptian media as the Natroun jailbreak case. The verdicts will be referred to the grand mufti.

Earlier this year, Amnesty International said that Egypt has issued the second highest number of death sentences worldwide in 2014, at 509 verdicts.

Many of the sentences were commuted at subsequent hearings or appeals, so the total number of executions carried out was 15.