By Caroline Hawley in Cairo

A court in southern Egypt has acquitted all but four of nearly 100 people charged with involvement in the country's worst religious violence for decades.

Thirty-eight Muslims had faced the death penalty for their role in the clashes, which swept the village of Kosheh, about 440km (275 miles) south of Cairo, just over a year ago.

Twenty Christians and one Muslim died after a dispute between a Muslim and Christian over a piece of cloth degenerated into several days of killings and looting.

Security forces ringed the court as the judge delivered his verdict in what has been an extremely sensitive case.

In the end, however, the harshest sentence was 10 years in jail for just one man, convicted of accidental homicide and illegal possession of a weapon.

Many had expected lenient verdicts on the grounds that the police had not prepared a proper case against the suspects.

'Justice not done'

But the ruling will leave many in the Christian community angry. Although 20 Christians died, no-one has been found guilty of their murder.

A local priest told the BBC that justice had not been done.

He said that security forces who had stood by while Christians were being killed had then protected the killers from punishment.

A Western diplomat who has been following the case closely also expressed surprise at the outcome.

He said it was not clear whether incompetence or a cover-up was to blame.