CAIRO: The Administrative Court postponed the case of covert to Christianity Maher El-Gohary to Nov. 19, because of a feud between his three lawyers.
El-Gohary, who converted to Christianity 34 years ago, had filed a case against Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif and Minister of Interior Habib El Adly in November 2009 when he and his daughter Dina were banned from traveling abroad.
The court session on Tuesday was marred by a verbal altercation between his three lawyers who each presented a power of attorney from El-Gohary to prove that they were representing him in the case.
The verbal altercations started among the three lawyers when Nabil Gobrael, Coptic activist and the lawyer who had initially filed the case, was surprised to find two other lawyers, Mamdouh Nakhla, director of the Kalema Center for Human Rights, and Howaida El Omada, representing his client in the same case.
Gobrael was infuriated by the incident. The feud between him and the lawyers almost turned into a fist fight.
Gobrael asked the court to reject the case, but the court refused his request and decided to postpone the case to Nov. 19 pending a decision by El-Gohary on which lawyer will represent him.
El-Gohary threatened to waive the case because of the feud.
He told Daily News Egypt, "I’m seriously thinking about waiving the case, because I’m certain than I won’t get any of my rights."
"It seems like I’ve been turned into a commodity, traded by the lawyers, who don’t care about anything except fame, and don’t care about the damage they’re causing their client."
El-Gohary said that he had hired two other lawyers to represent him in March 31 because he thought having more than one lawyer representing him would benefit his case.
"I don’t understand why they don’t co-operate with each other according to the traditions of their legal profession," he said.
