• Zaky, the hearing has been postponed to decide whether to extend the pre-trial detention
  • Zaky, the lawyer: new postponement of the hearing on pre-trial detention
  • Egypt dies in the same prison as Zaky 24-year-old satirical video director on Al-Sisi

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May 05, 2020 The pre-trial detention of Patrick George Zaky, the Egyptian student at the University of Bologna in prison in Cairo for almost three months on charges of subversive propaganda on Facebook, has been renewed for a later release . An attorney, Hoda Nasrallah, told ANSA.

"Today there has been a renewal, not a postponement", the lawyer wrote in a message, adding only that "the duration will be known tomorrow" (which is generally fortnightly but this time intervenes after seven postponements of a week) . Patrick did not attend the hearing and remained in the Tora prison, on the south-eastern outskirts of Cairo, the lawyer then specified.   

In the Egyptian capital it was learned that the Embassy of Italy in Cairo continues to follow the case, as it has done from the outset, with the utmost attention and that numerous awareness-raising initiatives have been conducted on the matter, even in the last few days. In fact, Ambassador Giampaolo Cantini has raised Patrick's case on several occasions, both with bilateral steps towards the Egyptian authorities, and through numerous contacts with the other competent Egyptian bodies. In steps and contacts, Cantini drew attention to the young person's health conditions and called for his release, in line with the requests filed by his lawyers with the public prosecutor's office. It is for example on the Italian initiative that the case has been included in the trial monitoring program of the European Union. A new initiative was then put in place in the last few days by the Embassy, ​​together with other international partners, to draw attention to the difficult situation of prisoners in Egyptian prisons, mentioning in particular those who, like Zaky, are in the investigation and suffer from health problems.   

Although it is still not possible for Embassies to attend hearings due to the restrictions imposed by the current coronavirus health emergency, it has also been learned that the European Union Delegation has sent a document to the competent Egyptian Public Prosecutor, on Italian initiative, to which he intends to continue monitoring the case. The document states that the presence of officials is prevented by the health emergency but that the Union continues to follow the case and will be able to return to do so even in the physical presence in the future, when conditions permit.