"The hearing ended without completing the hearing of the defense brief
and we are awaiting the decision": the activists who take care of the "Patrick Libero" account wrote in Arabic on Facebook.
On the basis of the Egyptian procedure, today's hearing should have been the last hearing in the trial against Patrick Zaki: an informed Egyptian source in Mansoura claimed it, thus predicting - at a time when the single judge must decide, but in any case not today - first the pronouncement of the sentence and then the filing of the reasons.
An Italian diplomat and representatives of the European Union, the USA, Canada and Ireland have arrived in Mansura, Egypt, for the hearing of the trial, as part of a European monitoring of the trials relevant to the respect of human rights in Egypt.
This was confirmed by ANSA in front of the Palace of Justice of the city on the delta of the Nile.
As always in the past for Patrick's case, the presence of foreign diplomats today also takes place at the invitation of the Italian embassy in Cairo.
The researcher and human rights activist, who has been free since December 8 after 22 months in pre-trial detention on more serious charges linked to ten posts on Facebook but informally shelved, is on trial in a State Security Court for the petty (or emergency) crimes of his hometown on the Nile Delta.
Patrick is accused for a 2019 article in which he defended the Copts, Egypt's Christian minority, underlining the bloody persecutions of ISIS in previous years and two cases of social and legal discrimination.
Although free, the 31-year-old gender studies researcher has a travel ban and cannot leave Egypt.
Today's hearing is openly considered by Amnesty International as an opportunity to verify Egypt's "willingness" to open a "new phase" in relations with Italy even though the Egyptian judiciary is independent from political power, at least formally.