The Tanta Misdemeanors Court on Sunday adjourned until 18 July the case of two lawyers sentenced to five years in prison each for assaulting a prosecutor in Tanta early last month. The verdict set off a nationwide dispute between Egyptian judges and lawyers, with the latter staging a series of subsequent strikes. The two lawyers are set to remain in custody until the court reconvenes in two weeks. As the court session began, police clashed with some 500 lawyers that attempted to enter the courtroom. One lawyer suffered serious injuries in the melee; two others were lightly injured. An hour into the session, defense lawyer Montasser el-Zayat told reporters he had withdrawn from the case after prosecutors presented documents showing that the two defendants had waved their counter-complaint against the Tanta prosecutor and that the first defendant had submitted a written apology for the incident. Egyptian Lawyers Syndicate board member Khaled Abu Kreisha, however, has denied both assertions. Gharbiya Prosecutor Ahmed Fathi, for his part, surprised the court when he announced that investigators had failed to submit their report on the incident to the prosecution, which the defense cited as justification to rescind the sentence. Translated from the Arabic Edition.
