Saida Zainab Misdemeanor Court approved the requests of the defense in the gag order of the killing of Lebanese pop singer Suzanne Tamim. The defense called for adding an official copy of the prosecution's memo to the report filed against the three national newspapers that have violated the order. In addition, the court allowed the defense of the five accused journalists access to the documents, and delayed the session to Jan. 29.
The defense called for official copies of the issues of Al-Akhbar, Al-Ahram and Al-Gomhuria dailies and other partisan papers on the same day in which Al-Masry Al-Youm and Al-Wafd were accused of violating the order. The defense called for an official copy from the prosecution's memo regarding the report accusing Al-Ahram, Al-Akhbar, Al-Gomhuria and other papers of violating the order, and called on the court to compare between what was published in Al-Masry Al-Youm before and after the order. These demands aim to uncover the truth before the court and to clarify that referring the journalists of Al-Masry Al-Youm and Al-Wafd to trial was totally contrary to similar cases in the same day's issues of the national newspapers, defense member Mohamed Hamouda said. Lawyer Essam Sultan provided photocopies of news items that were published in the three national papers that have violated the order. One of these items was published in Al-Ahram that the court heard the testimony of Samir Mohamed Zaki, owner of real estate marketing company in Sharm el-Sheikh. Another news item was published in Al-Akhbar to the effect that the court heard the testimony of Magid Ali Ibrahim, an auditor in Talaat Mostafa Group. The court said it does not follow a double-standard policy. Nor does it discriminate between the national and private newspapers.
