Egypt court rejects Red Sea islands’ transfer to Saudi

By Hussein al-Qabbani and Sayyid Fathi

CAIRO (AA) – Egypt’s High Administrative Court on Monday issued a final ruling confirming Egyptian sovereignty over two disputed Red Sea islands and rejecting their proposed transfer to Saudi Arabia.

With its ruling, the court -- Egypt’s highest judicial body for appeals -- threw out a government appeal lodged against an earlier verdict delivered last summer.

The ruling effectively annuls an agreement signed between Cairo and Riyadh last April for the transfer of Tiran and Sanafir islands to Saudi sovereignty.

"Members of the court have determined that the islands of Tiran and Sanafir belong to Egypt," Chief Judge Ahmed al-Shazli declared at the end of Monday’s televised court session.

Immediately after the verdict was read, dozens of people gathered both inside and outside the courtroom and chanted slogans against last year’s controversial agreement.

"We own the islands," they shouted. "The Egyptian judiciary has ruled: the islands belong to Egypt."

Last April, the Egyptian government announced plans to transfer Tiran and Sanafir -- which had been under Egyptian sovereignty for more than six decades -- to Saudi ownership.

The move prompted a public outcry amid accusations that President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi was "selling" Egyptian territory to the oil-rich kingdom, which since 2013 has given billions of dollars to Egypt to shore up the country’s faltering economy.

The government had tried to defend the move, noting that Egypt had assumed control of the two islands from Saudi Arabia in 1950 amid concerns they might be seized by Israel.