CAIRO, Egypt – A Cairo criminal court has sentenced prominent Egyptian television presenter Sarah Khalifa and 11 co-defendants to death by hanging after convicting them of operating an organized criminal syndicate involved in the illicit manufacture and trafficking of synthetic narcotics, judicial and state media sources confirmed in Cairo on Sunday, September 6, 2026.
The capital verdict concludes the first-instance trial of a sprawling narcotics case that involved 28 defendants, which ended with 12 individuals sentenced to death, nine receiving life imprisonment, and seven being acquitted of all charges.
Okay News reports that the Cairo Criminal Court found the convicted group guilty of establishing an organized transnational criminal gang specializing in procuring chemical precursors from abroad with the intent to manufacture synthetic narcotics and distribute them commercially across domestic markets.
According to investigative dossiers published by state-linked newspaper Al-Ahram, security forces seized more than 750 kilograms of narcotics and raw chemical agents, raided two residential apartments that had been converted into clandestine processing laboratories, and recovered caches of unlicensed firearms and live ammunition.
Khalifa, 39, rose to public prominence as the host of the crime and security investigative programme Mission Impossible on the private satellite channel Al-Mehwar TV, while simultaneously operating a cosmetic surgery clinic, an event-management enterprise, and commanding a digital following exceeding two million users on Instagram.
Throughout the preliminary interrogation and trial phases, Khalifa consistently denied the allegations, telling state prosecutors that she had never smoked a cigarette in her life and had no connection to illicit narcotics operations.
During the sentencing hearing, eyewitnesses and local correspondents reported that the television personality broke down in tears in the defendant’s dock, pleading for judicial mercy and stating that she was raised in a devout household and had no financial motivation to engage in narcotics trafficking.
The court handed down the capital sentences following formal consultation with the Grand Mufti of Egypt, a mandatory procedural step under Egyptian penal law for all capital cases, though the religious leader’s advisory opinion is legally non-binding on the presiding bench.
The death sentences are not immediately enforceable and remain subject to statutory judicial review, with defence attorneys preparing to file formal appeals before Egypt’s Court of Cassation, the nation’s highest appellate court, to petition for a retrial under updated procedural statutes governing capital convictions.
