The second presidential pardon list will be submitted to the presidency within days, member of the Detained Youth Committee Tarek El-Khouly said Thursday, despite previously announcing that the list would be sent to the presidency by the end of last week.
El-Khouly, who is also member of the parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee, explained that the submission was postponed due to discussions regarding the legal situation of prisoners held in pre-trial detention.
However, he said that lists of prisoners facing final verdicts and those imprisoned pending court sentences will be sent to the presidency within days.
The committee is currently still reviewing and finalising the list.
Regarding prisoners facing military trials, the member of parliament said that the committee will discuss the possibility of adding them to future lists with the presidency, noting that the committee had already received a number of related cases.
The committee’s recommendations for the second pardon list included giving prisoners the right to contact the committee through the prison administration and send their details to the committee to be included in further pardon lists.
The committee has been working on the second list since November, prior to the first round of pardons. The first list was finalised in two weeks, while the second has taken significantly more time to draft.
El-Khouly had previously said that the second list will mainly include students arrested during protests and prisoners in publishing cases, as well as a number of journalists recommended by the Press Syndicate.
The MP did not disclose any names and did not provide the number of prisoners included in the list.
The Detained Youth Committee was established based on recommendations made during the National Youth Conference that took place in October. During the conference, veteran politician Osama Al-Ghazali Harb called on the president to release young detainees.
