Cairo: Egypt’s Juvenile Criminal Court has sentenced two teenagers to 15 years in prison each in a rape case that sent shock waves across the country.

The court on Sunday also handed one defendant an extra five years in jail on charges of displaying unlawful power by appearing in a photo holding a machine-gun.

“The court believes that the two defendants, who are human predators, should receive the toughest penalty for their crime, which is the death penalty,” the presiding judge Ahmad Hamdi told a packed courtroom.

“But the court is very sorry because the Child Law includes no tougher penalty than the sentence already issued by the court. The court stands helpless before this legal constraint.”

The defendants were convicted of raping a five-year-old girl and killing her in November. Both defendants, aged 17 and 16 respectively, admitted during investigations that they had seized the child outside her apartment in the Suez Canal city of Port Saeed and forcibly carried her to the rooftop of her 11-floor building.

They dropped her from there after raping her, according to investigators. One defendant is a neighbour of the victim while the other is a son of the building doorman.

A series of protests in the victim’s hometown and other Egyptian cities, including Cairo, have since been held, demanding death punishment for the two accused. The incident has also generated massive media coverage in Egypt, which has been hit by street turmoil for three years now.

Egyptian law states that you childhood age at up to 18 and prohibits metering out life imprisonment or death penalty against child offenders.

Upon hearing the ruling, he victim’s mother burst into tears as her infuriated relatives condemned the verdict as too lenient.

“This ruling comes as a capital punishment for my family,” the mother, Shaimaa Gazzal, said in TV remarks. “ I saw the accused flashing the victory sign and sticking out their tongues in joy after the verdict,” she told private Dream TV late Sunday.

“I don’t question the integrity of the Egyptian judiciary. The judge did his job. The problem lies with the obsolete law. I demand these laws to be changed in order to protect the rest of my children and those of all Egyptians from the crimes of the juveniles whom the law still treats as children.”

In the wake of the verdict, delivered amid tight security, angry protesters rallied in Port Saeed, emending the two convicts be executed.

The ruling can be appealed.

The National Council for Childhood, a state-backed agency, requested the country’s chief prosecutor to order a new inquiry into the case and toughen the penalty.

“The council thinks that the penalty is not commensurate with the level and enormity of the crime,” it said in a statement.