The Emergency State Security Misdemeanors Court of Mansoura decided on Tuesday to postpone the trial of researcher Patrick George Zaki to the April 6 session for defense pleading.
He is accused of spreading false news by writing an article entitled “A week’s outcome in the diaries of Egypt’s Copts,” from a point of view of a Copt, which was published on the Daraj website.
Patrick said that he had hoped that the case would end today with acquittal so that he could return to Italy to complete his studies, where he started the second term there, but it is clear that delaying the case will make him study online in order to follow up on the verdict.
Patrick was released on December 7 pending the case, after 19 months in pretrial detention.
The defense team made its requests in the previous session, which included: hearing the testimony of the investigative officer who had written in the arrest report that Patrick was arrested in Mansoura and not Cairo Airport, as well as the National Security officer who conducted the investigations, to explain on what basis did he consider that Patrick spread false news.
The defense team also demanded that the extract an official certificate from the “inheritance declaration” in which a judge had refused to accept the testimony of a Christian, which Patrick cited in his article.
Patrick was arrested at Cairo airport in February 2020 after arriving from Italy on vacation, after the end of his first year of study, where he is studying for a master’s at the University of Bologna.
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Source: https://www.madamasr.com/ar/news/
