An Egyptian court has finally sentenced 23 defendants involved in the brutal lynching of Shia leader Hassan Shehata and three members of his community in June 2013 to lenient sentences of 14 years in prison.

The Saturday ruling against the Takfiri Salafist elements involved in the mob attack on a small Shia community, an incident that was videotaped and that sent shock waves across the country, came as eight of the defendants originally charged with attempted murder were exonerated by the court, Ahram Online reported.

The lenient sentences for those involved in the brutal murders were issued by the Cairo court while Egyptian judges handed down death sentences to activists involved in inciting rallies in protest at the military ouster of Egypt’s first democratically elected president Mohamed Morsi in July 2013.

In the gruesome lynching effort on June 23, 2013, an angry mob led by the country’s Saudi-backed Salafist sheikhs torched Shia residences in the small village of Zawyat Abu Musalam in Giza governorate, killing four citizens, including Shehata, a prominent cleric who was visiting one of the families in the village when the attack took place.

Extended video footage circulated online showing one of the victims being beaten and dragged through the streets. Eyewitness accounts say several members of the Shia community were stabbed multiple times in a brutal incident of public lynching.

According to the report, prior to the brutal lynching, former Salafist lawmakers in the Egyptian parliament had often expressed opposition to then-President Mohamed Morsi's plans to restore diplomatic ties with Shia-majority Iran.

The Shia scholar was born in November 10, 1946 in the small town of Harbit, Markaz Abu Kabir, in al-Sharqiyah province of Egypt.

He served as a prominent cleric who had thousands of followers due to his moderate views and his denouncement of radical and extremist movements in Egypt.

He was well known for telling people about the nature of extremist groups and radical thoughts which are common in Egypt due to the powerful presence of radical Salafist groups.

In Egypt, the small Shia population is harassed by authorities and treated with suspicion, being arrested - ostensibly for security reasons - but then being subjected to torrents of abuse by state security officers for their religious beliefs.

The Arab country has been witnessing a rise in hate crimes against Shias, which oservers believe is due to the widespread anti-Shia propaganda by Wahhabi elements aimed at encouraging people to go fight alongside the foreign-backed Takfiri terrorists in Syria.