Zaki case, legal: no hearing notification, but risks another 45 days

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23 August 2021 Due to bureaucratic slowness it will not be possible to know how many days the pre-trial detention in prison was renewed for the Egyptian student, activist for human rights and enrolled at the University of Bologna. This was announced by one of his lawyers, Hoda Nasrallah, on the phone with Ansa answering the question whether she had gone to the prosecutor's office this morning to receive notification of the outcome of yesterday's hearing. The risk, although there is no notification yet, is that Zaky will spend another 45 days in prison.

His lawyer also explained the bureaucratic slowness for the failure to notify "the chancellors are not always there to communicate the decision", and given "that he is not released means that it is the usual routine: 45 days are expected". Hoda Nasrallah , he added, however, specifying that "she had not been formally informed." Already yesterday evening, after the hearing, the lawyer had foreseen that the 30-year-old's pre-trial detention would be renewed but, in the absence of a formalization, she had not been able to indicate the number of days The notification was expected between today and tomorrow

After an initial phase of 5 months of fortnightly renewals delayed by the Covid emergency, for over a year Patrick's case has been in that of 45-day extensions.The researcher was arrested on 7 February 2020, more than 18 months ago, but the Pre-trial detention in Egypt can last two years with the possibility of extensions if, during the investigation, new elements of indictment emerge. If he goes to trial, Patrick faces up to 25 years in prison, according to Amnesty International. The charges against him are based on 10 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 ".

The mobilization of politics and civil society in his favor in Italy has institutionally culminated in a request from the Chamber of Deputies to the Government to provide him with Italian citizenship.