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An Egyptian court on Monday ordered the release of top activist Alaa Abdel Fattah on bail at a retrial of the case in which he was handed a 15-year prison sentence.
Abdel Fattah, who was one of the biggest faces of the 2011 revolt against former President Hosni Mubarak, was initially charged with assaulting a policeman at a protest. His detention, along with the detention of several other activists, raise fears among several rights groups that Egypt would return to autocratic rule, and that they are worse off under current President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi than they were during Mubarak’s reign.
“The court ordered the release on bail of Alaa Abdel Fattah and two other detainees”, defense lawyer Mohamed Abdel Aziz said.
They will be released after the payment of the bail amount, set at 5,000 Egyptian pounds each.
“The court also recused itself because of the defendants’ lack of respect for it”, possibly because they “had previously accused the presiding judge of supervising electoral fraud in 2005”, Abdel Aziz said.
The court has also “demanded an investigation into the prosecutor’s use of personal videos belonging to Abdel Fattah which violated the accused’s privacy”, he added.
According to the defense, at a previous retrial hearing, the prosecutor had shown personal videos of Abdel Fattah, which were in no way connected to the case.
Abdel Fattah was one of 25 people who were tried in absentia and sentenced to 15 years in prison on June 11th in a trial which was presided over by the same judges who passed Monday’s verdict. Abdel Fattah and two other co-defendants were not allowed to enter the court when the verdict was announced on June 11th, and were arrested soon after. He demanded new judges to preside over the start of the retrial, saying that he had “no confidence” in the judges presiding on June 11th.