Safaga Misdemeanor Court of Appeal decided to postpone to next Wednesday the case of the defendants accused of sinking Al-Salam 98 ferry. The Court will hear the final pleading of the defense of the accused. In the first instance, the defendants have been acquitted. The session lasted some 11 hours until late on Thursday and was marked by the rows, exchange of insults and launch of empty bottles between the victims' relatives and those accompanying the defense of the accused. Two women passed out, while some journalists lost the recordings with the session's proceedings. During the session, one of the Public Prosecution's representatives said the ferry sank due to mistakes made by the crew, which had been chosen by the first accused Mamdouh Ismail. The representative also affirmed that Mamdouh knew about the sinking at the time, but did not react promptly to save the victims. In its pleading, the Prosecution said that the acquittal had been groundless and that the judge had wasted clear evidence. The Prosecution also affirmed that the first-instance ruling was flawed and based on wrong conclusions and contradicted what was contained in the case papers. The Public Prosecution also demanded that the first-instance acquittal be annulled and that the defendants be sentenced to the maximum jail sentence (10 years), saying this would be adequate to the crime that the defendants had committed.
