Court rejects appeal against T-shirt detainee’s release

The South Cairo Criminal Court has rejected the prosecution’s appeal against the release of Mahmoud Mohamed, the 20-year-old arrested in 2014 for wearing an anti-torture T-shirt and a scarf with a logo commemorating the January 25 revolution.

The court ruled to release Mohamed and his friend Islam Talaat with an LE1,000 fine on Tuesday, but the prosecution immediately appealed the ruling. Defense lawyer Moukhtar Mounir told Mada Masr that the appeal had no legal basis, as the order to release Mohamed was supported by Article 143 of the Penal Code.

Article 143 stipulates a two-year maximum period for pretrial detention, unless the detainee is suspected of a crime that is punishable by death or life imprisonment.

Thursday’s ruling means that after spending more than two years in Cairo’s Tora Prison, Mohamed and Talaat are finally scheduled to be released on Thursday.

But even though he can now go home, the case against Mohamed is still ongoing, Mounir told Mada Masr. “The decision to release him does not represent an acquittal,” he explained.

In February, Mohamed’s case was referred to the State Security Prosecution, which investigates cases that threaten national security domestically and abroad. If the State Security Prosecution accepts the case, then Mohamed could stand trial before the criminal court’s terrorism division.

Mohamed has suffered from health problems during his detention in Tora Prison, according to his brother Tarek, as the prison doctors did not adequately treat complications stemming from a leg surgery Mohamed had undergone prior to his arrest.

Mohamed’s arrest and the repeated extension of his pretrial detention provoked widespread condemnation both locally and abroad. When Amnesty International issued a call for his release in October 2015, thousands of people worldwide submitted their signatures. The petitions were delivered to the public prosecution ahead of a hearing in which the prosecutor had again asked for his detention to be renewed.

In December 2015, several prominent rights activists and politicians released a video calling for Mohamed’s release that went viral on social media.