CAIRO: The District Attorney of the North Cairo court decided Wednesday to bring a close to the investigation of three state-run papers concerning the publishing ban on the Suzanne Tamim case.
The Prosecutor General’s office had referred a complaint submitted against Al-Ahram, Al-Akhbar and Al Gomhuria to DA Alaa Nour El-Din to investigate whether they had breached a press ban on the details of the Tamim murder trial.
Additionally, El-Din saw no cause for calling the newspapers’ editors in for questioning, deciding that the ban had not been violated in this instance, as they had only reported on the court’s decisions at the end of each session and not published details of witness testimonies.
Lawyers Ihab Naguib and Mohammed Shaaban had submitted the complaint to the Prosecutor’s office accusing the three government newspapers of violating the ban imposed by the judge hearing the case Al-Mohammadi Qunsua, who had decided that no details of events in court could be published, only court decisions.
Five journalists from the independent Al-Masry Al-Youm and opposition Al-Wafd newspapers including their two chief editors will be tried on grounds of violating the press ban by publishing details of a testimony by one witness in the case.
Their case has been referred to the South Cairo Misdemeanors Court by Public Prosecutor Abdel-Meguid Mahmoud and the trial begins Dec. 4.
One of the Al-Masry Al-Youm reporters due to stand trial, Yousry El-Badri, had accurately predicted that the complaint against the state-run newspapers would not lead to a trial.
“Our case was referred to the Southern Cairo court, theirs was sent to the North Cairo court. Why the discrepancy? he said.
He also said that he and his colleagues were not legally notified of the pending trial, and had known about it from a statement issued by the Prosecutor General’s office sent to the state-run papers.
Construction mogul Hisham Talaat Moustafa and former police officer Mohsen Al-Sokkary are on trial for ordering and murdering Tamim respectively.
