CAIRO: The detainees of the Hezbollah cell case will stand trial in the State Security Emergency Court, Public Prosecutor Abdel-Meguid Mahmoud announced Sunday.
Twenty-six people have been referred to the court, 22 of which are currently being detained in Egypt. The main suspect at large is Mohamed Qublan, the Hezbollah intelligence officer whom Egypt accuses of masterminding the cell, along with Sami Shihab who is in custody.
Mahmoud has submitted a request to Interpol to track Qublan and bring him to Egypt to stand trial.
Lawyer for some of the detainees Abdel-Moneim Abdel-Maqsoud told Daily News Egypt that the decision to hold the trial in a state security emergency court cast doubt on the integrity of the judicial process of the case.
“There is no appeals process in the emergency court, the decision to use this court affects the integrity of the trial, they should be tried in a civil court where they will have rights, he said.
Abdel-Maqsoud also claimed that although the detainees have been referred to the state security court, it could still be some time before the trial actually begins.
“We are waiting for the trial date to be announced and to receive the case file, it could be at anytime because there is a political motive behind this case, he said, “until today the detainees are still being referred to the prosecutor to renew their detention.
The prosecutor in his statement accused the detainees of conspiring “to carry out terrorist activities within Egypt and attack vessels passing through the Suez Canal, foreign tourists and tourist establishments.
“The confessions they claim to have extracted are suspect, Abdel-Maqsoud said.
Forty-nine people were initially charged with operating a cell in Egypt that was receiving its orders from Hezbollah. Though many had been detained since Nov. 2008, the announcement of the cell was not made till four months later in February.
The case led to a war of words between Hezbollah and the Egyptian government, which was angered by the actions of the Lebanese Shia group. The state press followed suit, constantly attacking the group and its leader Hassan Nasrallah.
For its part, Hezbollah – and its leader – seem unrepentant about the whole affair, stating that it was a legitimate form of assistance to the Palestinian resistance in Gaza.
Relations were already strained between the group and Egypt after Nasrallah had severely criticized Egypt’s actions during the Israeli offensive on Gaza last December, specifically it’s refusal to open the Rafah border crossing.
