The Criminal Appeals Circuit looked into appeal No. 16126 of 93, submitted by Badr Mohamed Abdullah against the five-year prison sentence issued against him on January 12th in Case No. 8615 of 2013 (Azbakeya Felonies), known in local media as the “Al-Fath Mosque events” or the “Ramses 2 events”.

The case dates back to August 2013, when demonstrations erupted in Ramses Square in Cairo and ended up with clashes that resulted in several deaths and injuries. The next day, people trapped in the nearby Al-Fath Mosque and those in its vicinity were randomly arrested, including Abdullah, who was on his way to buy school supplies from the Faggala area in preparation for the start of his first year at the Faculty of Engineering. Abdullah was 17 years old at the time. He was held in custody for three months and then released. He was arrested again in May 2020 to serve a five-year prison sentence issued against him in absentia on charges of participating in a gathering of more than five people to assault people and funds. He also faced charges of committing crimes to achieve that purpose, based on the principle of hypothetical liability stated in Article 3 of the Gathering Law No. 10 of 1914.

Abdullah’s retrial lasted about three years. The court did not consider all his arguments, the evidence he presented proving his presence at the place by chance, and the lack of his link to the criminal incident. This is stated in the case papers, which do not prove any evidence against him, as well as in the investigations that the court relied on, which indicated that about 10,000 people participated in the gathering, including the 494 defendants involved in the case. However, these investigations lacked seriousness and inadequacy, as they were squandered by the verdict issued in the first trial after the acquittal of many defendants out of the 494, as it was proven that they were present at the place by chance and that they had nothing to do with the criminal incident. However, the court did not acquit Abdullah; instead, it solely commuted the punishment from imprisonment to detention. Abdullah’s lawyer argued in the appeal that if the trial judge is free to form his belief, the Court of Appeal has the right to review the reasons that formed that belief. The lawyer further argued that the case was devoid of serious reasons.

The memorandum of the Criminal Appeal Prosecution, which Abdullah’s lawyer saw, stated that the Criminal Court had erred in applying the law if it was proven that Abdullah was under 18 at the time of the incident, so it applied Article 111 of the Child Law, which provides for the infliction of a prison sentence in crimes prescribed for the death penalty, life imprisonment or rigorous imprisonment, meaning that the original penalty for the crimes contained in the referral order for the child is imprisonment. As the retrial judge commuted the penalty from imprisonment to detention, he had to apply Article 18 of the Penal Code and reduce the penalty to three years in prison as a maximum period of detention, the memorandum stated, adding that the court accepted the appeal and corrected the sentence issued against Abdullah.

After hearing the defence arguments of the other 26 appellants, the Court of Appeal decided to issue a verdict in the case on December 22nd.

The appealed ruling was issued in 2023, so Abdullah and the other appellants did not benefit from litigation at two levels, appealing the judgment issued in the felony or benefiting from what was in force before limiting the appeal to one time in 2017. One of the most important reasons for that limitation was to achieve prompt justice. Abdullah has been detained for nearly five years, which is the penalty term. The appeal is still pending, and no final verdict has been issued.