The news of the opening tomorrow in Egypt of the trial against Patrick Zaki is “an enormously worrying development”. This was denounced by the spokesman of Amnesty International Italia, Riccardo Noury, from the very beginning on the front line for the liberation of the Egyptian student of the University of Bologna. “We had asked the Italian government in time to move”, continues Noury, “because we feared that this moment would come. Now every minute that passes, in which nothing is done for Patrick risks being truly culpably wasted time by the Italian institutions “.
“As we unfortunately expected, after a year and seven months of preventive detention, with the expiry of the 24 months provided for by the Egyptian procedure approaching, Patrick goes to trial”, recalls Noury, adding that the competent court will be that of the city of Mansura, where the young man had been detained immediately after his arrest. «Go to trial», continues the spokesperson for Amnesty, «for a paper in defense of the Coptic minority, which dates back to 2019; the evidence of the State Security Prosecutor’s Office is secret, so this accusation apparently seems to come out of nowhere, but it is part of everything that has been falsely mounted against him. ” Zaki is accused of subversive propaganda on the Internet and Amnesty considers him a prisoner of conscience.