AFTE’s Weekly Legal Bulletin (5: 12 March 2023)| AFTE submits two reports to the Public Prosecutor’s office demanding to reopen investigations into Ayman Hadhoud’s death incident and regarding poet Jalal Al-Behairi’s hunger strike and giving up his heart and depression medications

Date : Monday, 13 March, 2023
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The Public Prosecutor’s office: 

 

On March 5, AFTE submitted a request to the Public Prosecutor’s Office on behalf of Omar Hadhoud, the brother of economic researcher Ayman Hadhoud, demanding to reopen an investigation into Hadhoud’s death incident inside the Mental Health Hospital in Abbasiya. AFTE also demanded to move forward with the civil lawsuit filed by Hadhoud’s brother against the hospital’s administration. 

 

The memorandum of reasons to reopen an investigation was based on several reasons, including:

 

  • The Public Prosecution’s refusal to enable Hadhoud’s brother to comment on the statements of the witnesses, deliberately excluded his defense team, and refused their requests to view the case papers, or to know any developments regarding the progress of the investigations, and also refused to unload the cameras around the property, which the Ministry of Interior claimed that Hadhoud attempted to steal it, nor to unload the cameras in the Qasr al-Nil and Amiriya police stations, and the hallway cameras of the Mental Health Hospital in Abbasiya. 

 

  • Ayman Hadhoud’s body was kept in a mortuary for 35 days amid deliberate concealment by hospital officials, who refused to inform his family despite knowing his place of residence or handing over his body. 

 

  • Article (35) of the Psychiatric Patient Care Law obligates the patient’s family to be notified in case of death within twenty-four hours from the date of death, along with sending a detailed report on the deceased patient’s condition, examinations and treatment methods used. Despite this, the Public Prosecution Office did not show interest in investigating the incident of hiding the body for 35 days, the hospital administration refused to inform the family of the death, despite their repeated questions. Article (36) of the same law gave several rights to the detained patient, which the Public Prosecution neglected to investigate; it also neglected the deficiencies that marred the transparency of the investigations, such as the hospital administration’s intention to conceal information from his family, keeping the body in the mortuary refrigerator and not clarify the time of death.

 

  • In the anatomical report, the forensic doctor suggested that the causes of Hadhoud’s death were due to a chronic heart condition that Hudhood may have suffered from during his life and that another disease exacerbated the condition and later led to death, the investigation papers of the death incident were devoid of a heart doctor’s opinion, the prosecution adopted the opinion of the forensic doctor, despite the lack of competence of the forensic doctor to identify and describe physical diseases.

 

  • On April 12, the Public Prosecution issued a statement declaring that there was no criminal suspicion that led to death before starting investigations or hearing doctors’ statements and before receiving the final anatomical report.

 

In the memorandum, AFTE demanded to reopen and continue the investigations, to allow Hadhoud’s brother to examine the entire lawsuit papers, enable him to express his requests in the case, and form a tripartite committee of experts, forensic doctors, and doctors specializing in cardiology to examine the anatomical report to find out the reasons that led to death in details.

 

On March 8, AFTE filed a report to the Public Prosecutor’s office that carried No. 15196 of 2023 to start an investigation regarding poet Jalal Al-Behairi’s hunger strike; he also stopped taking his heart and depression medications since March 5; AFTE also demanded his receipt of the required health care at the prison hospital and to release him. 

Jalal Al-Behairi is the author of “Balha” song that criticizes the current regime, while the Egyptian authorities are intransigent in releasing him. Al-Behairi started his hunger strike simultaneously with starting his sixth year in prison while he didn’t commit any crime.

 

The Supreme State Security Prosecution

 

On March 6, the Supreme State Security Prosecution renewed the detention of the deputy director of the Information Technology Department at Al-Akhbar newspaper, Yehia Elsayed Othman,  the nursing student at Ain Shams University, Islam Ramadan Kamel, Adel Ahmed Soliman, and Mohamed Mostafa Abdel Qader for 15 days, in connection with investigations of case No. 1893 of 2022 (State Security).

The four defendants were arrested after posting calls for demonstrations in protest against poor living conditions. They face charges of joining and financing a terrorist group with their knowledge of its aims, inciting a terrorist act, promoting a terrorist act through social media, spreading false news, and participating in a criminal agreement intended to commit a terrorist act.

 

The Court of Cassation

 

The Court of Cassation set next March 25 hearing to adjudicate appeal No. 14376 of 13 filed by AFTE on behalf of Moka Hegazy against two years in prison and to be under judicial probation for one year sentence against her in connection with case No. 5459 of 2020.

Hegazy faces charges of practicing prostitution with men without discrimination in return for money and offering herself in a public manner that contained the temptation to practice debauchery; the Juvenile Misdemeanour Court sentenced Hegazy to one year in prison for the first accusation and two years for the second one; later, the Juvenile Misdemeanour Court of Appeal upheld the two years prison sentence and replaced the prison sentence of the first charge with judicial probation for one year. 

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