Former People’s Assembly speaker Fathi Sorour has been released from custody. Sorour was being held in relation to a corruption investigation by the Ministry of Justice’s Illicit Gains Authority. The authority confirmed in a phone call on Tuesday that Sorur had been released.
Sorour has been in and out of custody several times this year. He was remanded in June for inciting violence during the 2011 revolution. He was recently acquitted of those charges, only to be promptly remanded on corruption charges.
“Legally it is normal,” said Gamal Eid, executive director of the Arabic Network of Human Rights Information (ANHRI). “The prosecution has a right to release with bail or no bail, so they released him without bail.”
The release came with no conditions and no bail.
While this step does not necessarily signal how the rest of the case against Sorour will progress, Eid was not hopeful. “I have lost my trust in this judiciary system.”
The speaker is not the only member of old regime facing investigation by the Illicit Gains Authority. They are also investigatingwealthy National Democratic Party members Ibrahim Kamel, who heads KATO Investment, and Mohamed About el-Enin, the owner of Group Cleopatra.
