The Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) condemns the blatant violation of the minimum fair trial guarantees to which Ahmed Sabry Nassef has been subjected over the past seven years after the Ministry of Interior failed to implement a final judicial decision to release him and detained him in violation of the law for 40 days before presenting him to the prosecution for the ninth time for investigation in connection with Case 15986 of 2024, First Nasr City Misdemeanour, and accusing him again of joining a terrorist group and possessing three bullets. Moreover, during Nassef’s unlawful detention, on 7 October 2024, Khaled Diaa, the first attorney general of the State Security Prosecution, referred Case 750 of 2019 to the Supreme State Security Court, which includes Nassef and 206 others.

The EIPR had previously appealed to the Attorney General, Mohamed Shawky, to use his powers and direct the inspection of the Gamaleya station to implement a final judicial decision issued on 12 September 2024 to release Nassef. Still, the EIPR did not receive a response to its appeal.

The case for which Nassef was referred to the court is one in-which he was rotated during his detention. After more than a month of enforced disappearance, he was first interrogated on 19 February 2017 in Case 148 of 2017 on charges of joining a terrorist group. He remained in pre-trial detention until the Public Prosecution decided to release him on 13 March 2019. The Ministry of Interior did not implement the decision, and Nassef was rotated to Case 750 of 2019, which was recently referred to the court, for which he spent approximately two years and six months in pre-trial detention before a decision was issued to release him, which was also not implemented. 

The State Security Court is set to begin a mass trial of 207 people accused of committing the offences outlined in the referral order between 2013 and 2023. Nassef is accused of joining and financing a terrorist group, using a website to promote ideas that advocate the commission of terrorist acts, ‘preparing and preparing’ to commit terrorist crimes and participating in a criminal agreement to commit a terrorist crime.

Nassef’s intransigence is incomprehensible. He was arrested in January 2017 as an 18-year-old high school student. He was prevented from completing his studies due to his imprisonment in nine consecutive and similar cases. He continues to be rotated despite having received four court judgements declaring his innocence and lease decisions.

EIPR reiterates its call for Ahmed Sabry Nassef’s release and appeals to the Public Prosecutor to drop all open cases against him. EIPR hopes that the court will take a comprehensive look at Nassef’s situation over the past seven years and the persecution and arbitrariness to which he has been subjected and decide to exclude him from the case and release him, especially since he was never caught in flagrante delicto and was not confronted with any real evidence or solemn witnesses.