CAIRO: The Lawyers' Syndicate will not escalate the issue after the verdict handed down by the appeals court against two lawyers in Tanta city, syndicate board member Mohamed Abdel-Ghaffar said Tuesday. “The only proper procedure to take in the coming phase is to contest the verdict through a memorandum that [a representative of the defense team] will present before the cassation court within 60 days of the verdict, calling for a re-trial,” Abdel-Ghaffar told Daily News Egypt. According to Abdel-Ghaffar, also a defense team member, any strikes or escalation measures following the verdict “are undertaken on individual basis and have nothing to do with the syndicate.” On Sunday, the Tanta Appeals Court had commuted the previous sentence handed down to Ehab Saey El-Din and Moustafa Fatouh to two years and three months. The two lawyers have already spent three months in prison; and they have two years left. Lawyers Saey El-Din and Fatouh were found guilty of assaulting and offending the local prosecutor in Tanta, the capital of Gharbeya governorate, at his office. During a rushed trial in June, both men were sentenced to five years in prison, even though they claimed that they were attacked by Bassem Abu El-Rous and his office security first. They were also charged with attacking some employees at Abul Rous' office and a number of policemen as well as causing damages to public assets, the office furniture. In response to the verdict, lawyers nationwide held several strikes and sit-ins, which caused a stand-off between lawyers on the one hand and judges and prosecutors on the other. The lawyers' stance was supported by the syndicate led by Hamdy Khalifa. The syndicate ended all strikes and escalation measures in July. One of the defense points before the cassation court is to depend on the testimony of some of the witnesses in favor of the two lawyers. “One witness who works at Abou El-Rous' office affirmed the story of the lawyers. She said that one lawyer was [aggressively] grabbed by the office security, while the other was shouting as a reaction to [the way his colleague was dealt with],” Abdel-Ghaffar said. “The defense team will present a petition before the public prosecutor calling on him to suspend the verdict till the cassation court looks into the case,” he added.
