(AFP File Photo)
A report filed by a former top judge against blogger and political activist Alaa Abdel Fatah in 2014, has now turned into the latest case in which Abdel Fatah is to be investigated.
The Cassation Prosecution investigated the 25 January Revolution icon on Sunday over charges that include insulting the judiciary and spreading false news, according to the rights lawyer Mahmoud Belal.
Belal told Daily News Egypt that former head of the Supreme Judicial Council, Egypt’s top judiciary authority, Hamed Abdullah, filed the report against Abdel Fattah in April 2014.
A support group that calls for Abdel Fattah’s freedom published Monday that the investigation was over the report Abdullah filed which depends on a TV talk show in which notorious Zamalek SC president Mortada Mansour accused the activist of insulting the judiciary.
The charges also include “inciting demonstrations and toppling the state using his Twitter account, intentionally annoying and disturbing others via misusing communication tools”.
The blogger and activist is currently in prison where he is serving a five-year prison sentence. He also faces an additional EGP 100,000 fine handed to him in February over assaulting the police and illegal protesting in the Shura Council case.
In other cases Abdel Fattah faced, an appeal he raised against a suspended one year prison sentence for allegedly participating in the torching of ex-presidential candidate Ahmed Shafiq’s campaign headquarters was rejected.
Another case revolves around alleged insulting of the judiciary, where Abdel Fattah is a co-defendant alongside public figures from diverse and opposing political and social backgrounds. The case kicked off on Saturday, with the next session to be on 27 July.
Abdel Fattah is also awaiting a verdict on his appeal against a month in prison sentence for insulting the police.
Commenting on the news, the support group “Free Alaa” said: “The institutions entitled to achieve justice are no more hiding that they don’t spare effort to follow every character written on social networks and filing lawsuits to mute any voice that differs from what they claim.”
