(AFP PHOTO / STR)
Cairo Criminal Court denounced on Wednesday the US administration’s requests to release Egyptian-American activist Mohamed Soltan,son of the prominent Muslim Brotherhood leader Salah Soltan, postponing his trial to 5 November.
Soltan’s lawyer Halim Henish said US President Barack Obama asked Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi to release Soltan on bail, on account of his deteriorating health. An Egyptian foreign ministry letter to the vourt said that the request came during the United Nations’ General Assembly meetings in September.
The court received another letter from the US Embassy, presenting a petition before the prosecutor general with the same request. The court added that this is not intended as an intervention in internal affairs but a humanitarian request, and that Soltan would still not leave Egypt.
The prosecution presented medical reports from the prison saying that Soltan’s health condition was stable and that he is faking his hunger strike, said Hanish.
The court said it refused the interference of any country or party in a “purely judicial affair”, and that the Egyptian judiciary is independent and separate from any political dimensions, even if the defendant is a citizen of another country.
Mohamed Soltan has been on hunger strike for 270 days. The “Operations Room” trial involves 52 defendants including the Muslim Brotherhood’s Supreme Guide Mohammed Badie.
The defendants are charged with “forming an operations room to direct the Muslim Brotherhood group to defy the government during the Rabaa [Al-Adaweya] sit-in dispersal”, according to the statement released by the prosecutor general’s office in February.
