AN EGYPTIAN four-year-old boy has been sentenced to life in jail for committing four murders when he was aged only one year old.

Ahmed Mansour Karni was convicted of four counts of murder, eight counts of attempted murder, vandalising security property and threatening soldiers and police officers in a military court in Cairo this week.

He was not in court when he was convicted.

The boy was among 115 defendants who were given life sentences for the crimes committed in early 2014 in his home province of el-Fayoum, 70km south of Cairo.

But his defence lawyer, Faisal al-Sayd, said Ahmed’s name was added to the list by mistake.

He said the court did not pass the boy’s birth certificate to the judge to show that he was born in September 2012.

“The child Ahmed Mansour Karni’s birth certificate was presented after state security forces added his name to the list of accused, but then the case was transferred to the military court and the child was sentenced in absentia in an ensuing court hearing,” Mr al-Sayd told the Jerusalem Post. “This proves that the judge did not read the case.”

Egypt has been ruled by a military dictatorship under President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi since 2013.

Another Egyptian lawyer, Mohammed Abu Hurira, said the case showed that the “Egyptian scales of justice are not reversible” and that “there is no justice in Egypt”.

“Logic committed suicide a while ago. Egypt went crazy. Egypt is ruled by a bunch of lunatics,” he said.

