Home » Zaki’s lawyers ask for the change of judges who have to decide on release

Zaki’s lawyers ask for the change of judges who have to decide on release

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CAIRO. After 14 months of detention in Egypt Patrick George Zaki is very tired, “he is in a very bad psychological state”. This is the dramatic report that comes from Cairo from Patrick’s lawyer, Hoda Nasrallah, a pessimist about today’s hearing whose outcome has not yet been disclosed.

There are no encouraging signs from the Egyptian capital: the police prevented the presence in the courtroom of foreign diplomats interested in Patrick’s case, while the lawyers attempt a change of strategy by requesting the replacement of the judges dealing with Zaki’s file. Answers on this matter are expected for “tomorrow or the day after”. For Patrick George Zaki the ordeal is getting heavier. “I do not believe” in an imminent release from prison “given all these renewals”, the lawyer told ANSA by telephone, adding that she only hoped “in a replacement of the judging panel”. Patrick’s defense sees in the decisions on the continuous renewals of the imprisonment an unjustified judicial fury, hence the request for a change of judges.

The 29-year-old was arrested in controversial circumstances on February 7, 2020, and pre-trial detention in Egypt can last for two years. After an initial five-month phase of fortnightly renewals delayed by the Covid emergency, now Patrick’s case is in that of 45-day extensions. Another negative element today is the fact that foreign diplomats – from Italy, France, Canada and the United States – have been denied entry to court, despite the judge’s approval. However, they filed written communications to express interest in the case.

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Circumstances that weigh on Patrick, now tried not only from the physical point of view but above all from the mental one. “Patrick was in a very bad psychological state. There was no time to be near him, ”said the lawyer. He hasn’t even spoken to his lawyers. Less than two weeks ago his sister, Marise, told ANSA that Patrick “lately is becoming more and more depressed, feeling blocked and living in uncertainty about when all this will end”. “We are very worried,” says Riccardo Noury, spokesperson for Amnesty International Italia: “The situation is truly urgent. I don’t want to appear or seem blasphemous but this is really Patrick’s ‘Passion’ ». For the NGO «it is urgent that there be the maximum possible mobilization on the diplomatic level, involving Italy above all. It is okay to wait for the outcome of the hearing but here we are faced with a situation on which it is necessary to do our utmost and do it soon ».

For Zaki, the tweet of “hope” of the secretary of the Democratic Party Enrico Letta: «Let’s not give up». Zaki, a student of the University of Bologna, has been detained for over a year in Egypt, in the Tora prison. The researcher, human rights activist, in Bologna was following the Gemma European master in gender studies from September 2019. At the beginning of February 2020, Patrick went to his native country, Egypt, for a short vacation from university commitments and at the airport he was stopped, interrogated and tortured according to his lawyers, and placed under arrest. Among the charges also subversive propaganda and incitement to terrorism, based in particular on a dozen Facebook posts from an account that, however, Patrick and his lawyers claim to be not authentic. He faces 25 years in prison.

And Senator Valeria Fedeli, leader of the Pd group in the Human Rights Commission at Palazzo Madama, declared: «Almost 14 months after the arbitrary and illegal arrest, today yet another hearing for Patrick Zaki. For his freedom and in the name of human rights it is necessary to recognize his Italian citizenship as soon as possible, to act strongly on the Egyptian authorities, to ask the EU for a concrete commitment ».

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