The pre-trial detention in Cairo of Patrick Zaki, the Egyptian student of the Alma Mater University of Bologna, arrested in February last year for subversive propaganda on the internet, has been extended by another 45 days.
This was reported to ANSA by Lobna Darwish, a representative of the NGO "Eipr" ("the Egyptian initiative for personal rights") announcing the outcome of a hearing held the day before yesterday and made known today.
"Unfortunately, the pre-trial detention was renewed for a further 45 days," wrote Darwish, belonging to the NGO for which Zaki was a researcher in gender studies, without adding other details.
A hearing session was held on Monday including that of the Egyptian student and the judges' decision on whether or not to renew the detention, as usual, had not been announced.
The wait was first concentrated on yesterday, that is the day after the hearing when usually one of his lawyers, Hoda Nasrallah, goes to the Prosecutor's Office to receive a notification of the ruling, which was then not published.
Informed Egyptian sources had specified that it was not a postponement of the decision but only of its announcement due to a technical-bureaucratic issue (the absence of an official).
The previous hearing that renewed the custody of the researcher and civil rights activist took place on June 1st. The 30-year-old was arrested under controversial circumstances on February 7 last year and faces up to 25 years in prison, according to Amnesty. Pre-trial detention in Egypt can last for two years.
The charges against him are based on ten posts from a Facebook account that his lawyers consider fake but which have configured, among other things, the "spread of false news, incitement to protest and incitement to violence and terrorist crimes ".
