CAIRO: Five journalists from Al-Masry Al-Youm and Al-Wafd newspapers, including their two chief editors, will be tried on grounds of violating the press ban on the details of the Suzanne Tamim murder case.
Their case has been referred to the South Cairo Misdemeanors Court by Prosecutor General Abdel-Meguid Mahmoud. The trial begins Dec. 4.
Al-Masry Al-Youm Editor Magdy El-Gallad along with reporters Yousri El-Badri and Farouk El-Dessouki had already been taken in for a five-hour interrogation by the public prosecutor’s office last week.
Al-Wafd editor Abbas El-Tarabili and journalist Ibrahim Qaraa will also stand trial with Al-Masry Al-Youm journalists on charges of violating the press ban.
Sardonically, El-Badri told Daily News Egypt that they had not yet been officially summoned to court, and had only heard about this through a statement released by Mahmoud to the state-run papers.
“We have not been notified officially that we are on trial, all we know is that the prosecutor general sent a statement to the semi-official newspapers. Al-Masry Al-Youm was not sent this statement.
“We will attend, he added, “but we were not expecting things to develop so rapidly. Why Al-Masry Al-Youm and Al-Wafd and why the urgency?
The presiding judge on the Tamim case, Al-Mohammadi Qunsua, decided last week that the media could no longer report on the details of the case, but could only report court decisions in the case of an adjournment or verdict.
The case concerns the publishing of the testimony of one of the witnesses, but the reporters have denied the charges, stating that they published the witness testimony from the prosecution’s investigations and additionally from accounts by two lawyers representing Tamim’s father, Abdel-Sattar.
“We printed the testimony of the witness from his questioning by the Public Prosecutor, not from the details of what happened inside the court room, El-Badri said.
El-Badri said, “I’m not optimistic at all. This is because of the speed of events. We covered the case until Nov. 20. In the last session, (Moustafa’s lawyer) Farouk El-Dib submitted a copy of our newspaper claiming we had violated the ban. Merely hours later we were called for questioning at the public prosecution office, which lasted five hours. We denied these claims and they were very understanding.
El-Badri also pointed out the disparity in the treatment of the state-run papers, which have also been accused of violating the ban.
Lawyers Ihab Naguib and Mohammed Shaaban submitted a complaint to the public prosecutor’s office accusing Al-Ahram, Al-Akhbar and Al-Gomhuria of breaching the ban imposed by the judge hearing the case.
Mahmoud has referred that complaint to the North Cairo Court, which is currently investigating the matter but El-Badri believed that it would not reach a trial.
“We will accept any judgment given, we respect the Egyptian judiciary, the public prosecutor saw that there was a misunderstanding and we will submit the same papers in court, El-Badri said.
