By Heba Fahmy
CAIRO: The Emergency State Security Court on Sunday adjourned to Sept. 4 the case of 48 defendants involved in the Imbaba sectarian clashes last May, which left 15 dead and 242 injured.
A new dock was created in the courtroom in order to separate the Muslim and Christian defendants, as security forces surrounded the courthouse and families of the defendants staged protests outside.
The charges include murder, attempted murder, jeopardizing public peace, igniting sectarian strife, torching a church and possessing unlicensed weapons with the intention of carrying out a terrorist act.
The trial was postponed to include a report issued by an independent fact-finding committee in the case file and to hear the prosecution’s witnesses.
Violent clashes broke out in the working class Cairo district of Imbaba on May 7 and 8, after a group of Muslims surrounded Marmina Church to demand the handover of a woman allegedly detained by the church after she converted to Islam and left her Christian husband to marry a Muslim. The nearby Virgin Mary Church was torched by thugs during the clashes.
After the clashes, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, which took power when Mubarak was ousted, warned it will “strike with an iron hand all those who seek to tamper with the nation’s security.”
The defense lawyers requested that the defendants be prosecuted before a criminal court, instead of an emergency court which deprives them of many basic rights, including the right to appeal the verdict.
“The emergency court’s verdict is considered final, this deprives the defendants of their simplest right to a fair trial,” member of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights Ishaq Ibrahim, who is following the case, told Daily News Egypt.
Ibrahim explained that defendants are referred to emergency courts when they are accused of threatening national unity and security.
Around 24 of the defendants are being tried in absentia, according to Ibrahim, while the rest remain in custody pending the court’s verdict.
Around 200 protesters gathered in front of the court house demanding the release of one of the defendants, Abou Yehia, a Salafi, ultra-conservative Muslim sheikh, according to media reports.
The protesters also called on the Grand Mufti of Al Azhar to support them. –Additional reporting by AFP
