Position paper

The referral of state security cases to trial has increased exponentially since September 2024, with Egypt’s Supreme State Security Prosecution (SSSP) referring at least 186 cases to courts so far. The cases were opened between 2015 and 2024, involve more than 6000 people accused of “terrorism,” including children, and more than half of the people involved are being held in pretrial detention. More cases are expected to be referred to trial in the coming days.

The judiciary is expected to rule on dozens of cases in mass trials. But the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) believes that all signs suggest that thousands of defendants will not receive fair trials and may remain in pretrial detention indefinitely, as trials are likely to go on for years. The vast majority of cases have not yet been assigned to specific courts, and defendants’ lawyers are still barred from accessing the case files. 

This critical and unprecedented situation created by the SSSP threatens to destroy what remains of the reputation of the Egyptian judicial system and the futures of thousands of defendants. The lives of the defendants and their families will be toyed with, their time wasted, as fair trial guarantees will be jettisoned under the pretext of sheer numbers. The new Criminal Procedures Code means they may be tried remotely, separated from their lawyers and without witnesses. A significant number face charges that may carry the death penalty. 

Only about 20 cases have been examined or had hearings set. Who will try more than 6000 defendants at once? The two terrorism courts at the Badr Courts Complex are expected to adjudicate all these cases in the first instance. Neither has issued a single release decision for any pretrial detainee to date. They have issued thousands of decisions to illegally extend defendants’ detention, in hearings that mostly lacked the minimum fair-trial guarantees or did not attempt to maintain legal formalities.

If first-instance verdicts are issued during the current judicial year and defendants try to appeal, they will have access to only one appeals chamber, headed by Hamada El-Sawy, the former public prosecutor under whom the SSSP investigated most of these cases. This makes his handling of any of the cases a clear violation of Article 247 of the Criminal Procedures Code, which prohibits a judge from hearing a lawsuit over which he served as public prosecutor.

Late trials and endless pretrial detention

The SSSP’s sudden decision to try thousands en masse raises legitimate questions about the authorities’ concept of “swift justice.” The SSSP has kept dozens of cases open for several years after defendants’ interrogations, without completing investigations or providing new evidence, before abruptly referring them to trial. Others have been referred to trial immediately after questioning in connection with other cases that have also been open for years, having been informed of the charges only a few weeks before referral to trial.

In most of the referred cases, the SSSP says that the crimes occurred years before the cases came to light. For example, it accuses 18 people in Case No. 1470 of 2019 of committing crimes between 1992 and 2020. Was the National Security Sector (formerly State Security Agency) aware of decades-long crimes without taking action? Or were these ongoing crimes only recently discovered? Either way, the Interior Ministry is guilty of negligence both for its long failure to arrest the perpetrators, if the defendants are convicted, and, if the defendants are acquitted, for allowing detentions for political reasons.

EIPR is taking on the legal defense of several defendants recently referred to trial, while also following up on others with various cases and legal statuses. Among those referred to trial are citizens illegally held in pretrial detention for several years in connection with the same case. Others have been referred to trial in connection with cases they have been newly assigned to (or “recycled” into) even though the cases in question emerged while they were in detention; their original cases, open for many years, have not been referred. Other defendants have been referred to trial in connection with more than one case, but on the same charges. The defendants include children, young people, and the elderly as well as lawyers, journalists, human rights defenders, and politicians arrested for their work or activism. Some were detained for unknown reasons.

Ahmed Mohamed Tawfik, 39, has been detained since April 2022 in connection with Case No. 330 of 2020, which includes 59 defendants. Tawfik is the sole breadwinner for his elderly parents, wife, and sick child. His pretrial detention has exceeded the legal limit, and he is still detained at the Correctional and Rehabilitation Center in 10th of Ramadan City; where the prison administration refuses to treat a critical health condition. Photojournalist Hamdy Mokhtar is referred to trial alongside 168 people in connection with Case No. 955 of 2020 after serving double the legal maximum pretrial detention. Mokhtar was arrested and interrogated in January 2021; the SSSP referred him to trial in January 2025 on charges of joining a group and participating in a criminal conspiracy.

Another example is translator Marwa Arafa, 32, illegally held in pretrial detention for five years in connection with Case No. 570 of 2020 after one interrogation session. Her trial will include 38 other defendants in the same case—most accused of joining and financing a terrorist group between 2013 and 2020—and is meant to begin soon, five years after the crimes the defendants are supposed to have committed. This case includes Taher Gamal Salah El-Din, who, having been in pretrial detention for over four years, was summoned and questioned again in November 2024 by the SSSP in connection with Case No. 585 of 2020, and charged again with joining and financing a terrorist group. The SSSP is thus referring him to trial in connection with two different cases for committing the same offenses in the same time frame.

The crime of “recycling”

In December 2024 the SSSP “recycled” at least 88 defendants, all held in illegally extended pretrial detention, into cases registered in 2022 that had surfaced while they were detained. It then released them from the cases they were originally detained for so that they could start further open-ended pretrial detention in connection to the new cases.

Among these defendants is Mahmoud Shaaban Ghanem, a 39-year-old worker arrested from his home in October 2018. He appeared before the SSSP for the first time in February 2019 and was illegally detained for nearly six years in connection with Case No. 277 of 2019. During his detention the SSSP recycled him into a new case, No. 1095 of 2022, and over two years later it interrogated him for the first time. Immediately before he was referred to trial, Ghanem was released from Case No. 277 of 2019 and began his detention in connection with Case No. 1095 of 2022. This means that if the court convicts him on the charge he is twice accused of (joining a terrorist group), the past six years will not be deducted from his prison sentence—and if he is acquitted he may still be referred to trial again.

Another defendant “recycled” before being referred to trial is Ahmed Sabry Nassef, 26, who has been detained since 2017, when he was 18 years old. Connected with nine cases during that period on similar charges, he was acquitted in some and decisions were issued to release him in others, but none of these decisions were implemented. He continued to be recycled into new cases until the SSSP referred him to trial along with 206 others in connection with Case No. 750 of 2019. According to the prosecution, the crimes in this case occurred between 2013 and 2023, during which Nassef was either a child or held in custody.

Multiple defendants are awaiting trial in more than one case on the same charges, such as Ibrahim Metwally, 61, human rights lawyer and coordinator of Egypt’s Association of Families of the Forcibly Disappeared, who has been in pretrial detention since September 2017. Metwally has spent most of the past seven years in solitary confinement and is not allowed visits. The SSSP brought similar charges against him in connection with three cases, all referred to trial successively within less than two months.

One judgement isn’t enough? 

Referring individuals to trial on charges that are the same as those they have already served or still are serving prison sentences for is illegal and violates the Criminal Procedure Code, which prohibits the punishment of a person for the same act twice. More critically, however, this pattern of referrals casts doubt on the effectiveness of the Egyptian “correction and rehabilitation” system, and the extent to which the Ministry of Interior, represented by the Prisons Authority, is fulfilling its mandate. Charging people with crimes that took place while they were in the custody of the Interior Ministry means that either the ministry allows crimes to occur in its detention facilities or that the SSSP investigations into detainees held incommunicado for years are fabricated.

The list of those referred to trial by the SSSP includes several individuals previously sentenced to non-appealable terms by the Emergency State Security Courts in connection with similar cases. For example, lawyer and former National Council for Human Rights member Hoda Abdel Moneim, 66, is awaiting trial in connection with two cases on charges of joining and financing a terrorist group, even though she had previously been acquitted of the charge of financing and is serving a five-year jail term for “joining a terrorist group.” 

The deputy head of the Strong Egypt Party, Mohamed al-Qassas, was arrested in February 2018 and held in pretrial detention in connection with four different cases in succession. Although the Emergency Supreme State Security Court sentenced him to 10 years in prison in 2022, the SSSP has referred him to trial again on similar charges in connection with Case No. 786 of 2020. In December 2024 the party’s president and former presidential candidate Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh, 73, who is serving a 15-year prison sentence in the same case as al-Qassas, was recycled into Case No. 786 of 2020, which emerged two years after his arrest. He was referred to trial on the same day as his questioning by the SSSP. 

Lawyer Essam Sultan, detained since 2013 and not allowed visits for years, was also recycled into a new case. His lawyer met him by chance for the first time in years at SSSP headquarters when he was brought in for questioning in connection with a new case, referred to court as No. 2175 of 2021.

Hundreds unlawfully detained

Article 142 of the Criminal Procedures Code stipulates that pretrial detention ends after 15 days, but allows the investigating judge, before the expiry of that period and after hearing statements from the public prosecution and the accused, to extend detention for similar periods provided that the total period does not exceed 45 days. During investigation into open state security cases, the authority to extend detention initially lies with the SSSP, which may renew a detention order for a maximum of 150 days, through 10 sessions held every 15 days. The authority to renew detention is then transferred to the criminal court, which must consider renewal once every 45 days. Article 143 of the law stipulates that, if the penalty prescribed for the offence is life imprisonment or death, pretrial detention during preliminary investigations and other stages of criminal proceedings may not exceed two years. Upon referral to trial, the adjudicating court is responsible for deciding to extend defendants’ detention or release them pending trial. 

For most of the pretrial detainees who have been informed in recent months that they will be referred to trial, however, no court has been designated to hear their cases. Meanwhile, those detainees are no longer being added to the list of names whose detention is to be examined by courts in the Badr Prison Complex. Thus several have remained in detention for months without the legal status of their detention being considered by any party, meaning they are detained without legal basis.

Marwa Arafa is one example. She has been in pretrial detention since April 2020. Instead of releasing her in April 2022, the authorities continued to bring her to court and renew her detention every 45 days, in contravention of Article 143 of the Criminal Procedure Code which sets the maximum limit of pretrial detention at two years. Arafa was informed of her referral to trial in December 2024, but has not been told when it will start or at which court. In the meantime, no party is considering the legality of her detention.

According to Article 214 of the Criminal Procedure Code, the public prosecution shall notify litigants of the order referring their case to criminal court within 10 days of its issuance. The case file is then immediately sent, in accordance with Article 214 (bis A), to the registry of the court of appeal. On receiving it, the court’s president, in accordance with Article 378, determines the session in which the case shall be heard, prepares a case schedule for each session, forwards copies of the case files to the councilors assigned to the relevant session, and orders a notice to be served upon the accused and witnesses stating the day and session set to hear the case. None of this procedure seems to have been observed in many of the cases discussed here, for even though they were referred to trial weeks or months ago, no information has surfaced on which courts will hear them.

Article 143 obliges the public prosecution, within five days of notification of a defendant’s referral to court, to present their detention order to that court for consideration. Article 151 stipulates that if the referral is to a criminal court, the consideration of the order to extend pretrial detention outside the trial session is under jurisdiction of the misdemeanor court of appeal, which will consider requests for release and detention until the lawsuit is brought before the designated court. If the charge is a felony, pretrial detention may not exceed five months except if the prosecution obtains, before the expiry of that period, an order from the competent court to extend detention for a period not exceeding 45 days, renewable for a similar period or periods. Otherwise the accused must be released.

Article 151 clarifies that if referral takes place without specifying which court will hear the case, the misdemeanor court of appeal will consider requests of release or detention until the lawsuit is referred to the competent court.

The Criminal Procedures Code thus sets out clear rules for the course of cases between referral to court and the start of trial, which are supposed to maintain a clear legal framework for defendants’ detention or release. Yet clearly the absence of sanctions or any annulment mechanism for violating these rules has suggested to the concerned authorities that ignoring or violating the law creates no crisis. This has left hundreds detained with no legal justification, no conviction, for apparently endless periods, and without channels to object or request that the law is enforced.

What is to be done?

In January 2023, President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi declared that the state had had great success in eliminating terrorism: “after almost ten years, thank God, there’s no more terrorism.” Two years later it seems the SSSP has a different view, as terrorism charges against citizens have escalated, sometimes for daring to exercise their civil and political rights as guaranteed by the Constitution, at other times arbitrarily. Many Egyptian citizens have faced terror charges over the past two years in addition to the thousands recently referred to trial. Most of those recently charged have been held in pretrial detention in connection with cases that are still “under investigation,” most often for expressing solidarity with Palestinians and denouncing their ongoing genocide, for calling for demonstrations, or for criticizing price hikes and electricity cuts.

Trying thousands under the pretext of terrorism, without concrete facts or any real harm to citizens, public property, or the “prestige of the state,” has a catastrophic effect on the defendants and their families, but also overburdens the justice system with a huge volume of lawsuits that may take years to examine. Mistakes happen, and trying to fix them instead of persist in making them will always be the right decision. Egyptian law provides a list of solutions that EIPR believes will help resolve the crisis and put an end to this crime, most notably:

• Public Prosecutor Mohamed Shawky should enforce the law and immediately release all those whose pretrial detention has exceeded the legal maximum set by Article 143 of the current Criminal Procedures Code. He should also drop cases that have been open for years without any investigations completed.

• The public prosecution should urgently review all referral orders issued before scheduling trial sessions to ensure compliance with the law and that no one is tried more than once for the same crime.

• The public prosecution should abide by the principle of transparency stipulated in Article 68 of the Constitution, and provide an easily accessible inventory of all state security cases referred to court or being deliberated before the judiciary, as well as the names of all defendants involved in these cases, whether detained or not.

• Courts should be identified to hear the referred cases urgently, ensuring their compliance with the law and setting a clear time frame for the completion of their work. These courts should must review the record and description of the charges levelled against the defendants.

• The Anti-Terrorism Law No. 94 of 2015 should be amended to align with the Egyptian Constitution, ensuring its effectiveness in combating terrorism limiting its reach so that it does not affect uninvolved individuals, especially children. It must be redrafted to include precise, universal, and just definitions that distinguish terrorist organizations from parties, unions, human rights organizations, and individuals belonging to such entities. It should no longer be possible to apply it to individuals for exercising their rights to expression and peaceful assembly.

• The Criminal Procedures Code should provide for the release of defendants upon completion of the legal maximum pretrial detention, through a clear mechanism, and not permitting the defendant to be charged with committing similar crimes within a similar time period in connection with different cases.

• The Criminal Procedures Code should clearly stipulate that defendants are to attend their trial sessions in person with their lawyers, oblige the concerned authorities to make available and facilitate access to all papers related to the case, and allow consultation with the defense team before the start of the trial.

• The relevant authorities, mainly the president of the republic and the House of Representatives, should take Article 76 of the Penal Code into account and work on issuing a comprehensive amnesty law, which would allow for a review of the status of thousands of detainees who have not caused any direct damage, thereby implementing the spirit and provisions of the law.