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03 May 2020A 24-year-old Egyptian photographer and director, author of a video of a critical satirical song about the president, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, died yesterday in the notorious prison for political prisoners in Tora, Cairo, the same where Patrick is locked up. Zaky.     

Chadi Habash died in Tora prison, his lawyer Ahmed al-Khawaga reported that he was unable to explain the causes of the death. "His health had deteriorated for several days. He was hospitalized and then returned to prison on the same day he died," said the lawyer, without giving further details.

Chadi Habash was arrested in March 2018 on charges of "spreading false news" and "belonging to an illegal organization", according to the prosecutor's office, but never tried. He made the video clip of the song "Balaha", by Rami Issam, a rock singer who made a name for himself during the popular uprising of January-February 2011 against the then President Hosni Mubarak and fled to exile in Sweden.     

Once censored in Egypt, the footage was viewed over 5 million times on YouTube. According to the Arab Network for Human Rights and Information (ANHRI), Habash died of "negligence and lack of justice".

The young director has never been tried. No comment at the time of the Egyptian government.

In a letter published by his colleagues last October, Habash wrote: "I need your support to escape death. For the past two years I have tried to resist being the same person you know once I get out of prison, but I can no longer to do it".     

Patrick Zaky, 28, is a student of the University of Bologna who was arrested on 8 February in Cairo on his return from Italy, on charges of having spread information on Facebook that was harmful to the Egyptian state.