“Let’s hope it’s the end of this nightmare.” Today, Tuesday 5 April at the court of Mansura, Egypt, the new hearing is held in the trial of Patrick Zaki, the student of the University of Bologna who has undergone 22 months of preventive detention, and who is free awaiting trial from the last December 8th. The hope of the activists of the “Free Patrick” network are confident that the new hearing will put an end to his judicial affair with an acquittal, but the lawyers of the young Egyptian instead fear a very long postponement, as indeed it was from the last hearing, that of February 1st.
Meanwhile Patrick Zaki denounces: “Good morning since last night and I am facing a huge cyber attack on my email and social media accounts. What a good start !! “.
The prisoner Zaki
by Carlo Bonini (editorial coordination), Francesca Caferri and Ilaria Venturi. Multimedia coordination by Laura Pertici. Gedi Visual production
On that day “Patrick was forced to sit once again inside the cage next to inmates, and then he was let go with postponement to April 5,” the activists recall. All of this “is very tiring for Patrick and his family, especially as he has to relive his trauma every time he is placed in the cage during the trial. We are never sure if he will come home with us or if they will not leave him. get out of the cage. All we want is for Patrick to be a completely free person, as he once was. We ask for an end to this process and for him to return to Bologna to finish his studies. ”
Zaki faces another five years in prison – in addition to the almost 2 years already spent in a cell awaiting trial – for having written an article on some cases of discrimination against Egyptian Christians which would constitute the crime of “spreading false news” in the years of Egypt, also punished with five years in prison. Patrick’s lawyers have an appointment at 9 am, local and Italian time, in the new wing of the Mansura court. It is reasonable to expect that the outcome of the hearing will arrive within a few hours given that Ramadan is underway, the Islamic holy month of daytime fasting and prayer in which activities slow down and office hours are shortened.