The Cairo Criminal Court on Wednesday postponed the retrial of activist Alaa Abdel-Fattah and 24 others in the case known as the “Shura Council Incident” to 15 September to complete hearing the testimonies of the witnesses.
The defendants were remanded in custody until the next session.
The court offered a number of videos clips of the defendants, through CDs, and contained a march organized by the defendants chanted, as it appears to the first scene Talaat Harb Square, while the second shows the front of the journalists' union. And was mentioned in another video scenes, especially the first accused in the case, Alaa Abdel-Fattah, and his wife was not being displayed.
The court viewed videos of the defendants demonstrating in Talaat Harb Street and outside the Journalists Syndicate.
Khaled Ali, a member of the defense team, claimed the videos were re-edited. “The second video was taken from my client’s laptop in violation of the law,” he said.
The court agreed not to play the second video because it was a personal clip of the defendant and his wife and ordered to play the third video unless it too contained personal material.
The court declined a request by the defendants to switch off the air-conditioners because the doc was too cold.
It allowed a delegation of the European Union and Abdel Fattah’s mother and sister, as well as other political activists, to attend the session.
Also, the police released the photographer from Al-Masry Al-Youm after he was detained for taking pictures of the lawyers entering the court.
Brigadier-General Alaa Ali, a prosecution witness, said the defendants assaulted security forces during the Shura Council events but could not identify any of them.
Karim Mahmoud, a police officer and witness, said he saw Abdel Fattah and two others assaulting police officer Emad Tahoun and stealing his weapon, adding that he arrested 17 protesters on that day, including females.
The case dates back to 26 November 2013 when a number of activists organized a vigil outside the Shura Council to object to military trials for civilians, which the police dispersed by force and arrested many of them.
The next day, Abdel Fattah was included in the case and an arrest order was issued for him. Although he had said that he would turn himself in, the police stormed his home and arrested him.
This was the first case to which the protest law that was issued by Interim President Adly Mansour on 24 November 2013 was applied.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
