CAIRO: The Rod Al Farag Misdemeanors Court adjourned the trial of eight protesters on Thursday to Feb. 24 in order to hear two witnesses and allow the defense team to review the Rod Al Farag police station's records. The eight Muslim protesters, affiliated with various opposition movements, were initially detained during a Jan. 3 protest in Shubra that condemned the New Year's bombing in front of Al-Qeddesine (The Church of the Two Saints) in Alexandria that left 23 dead and more than 90 injured. The court demanded to hear the accounts of Lieutenant Ehab Roshdy, an officer at the Rod Al Farag police station, and Ahmed Abdel Wahab, the head of the police station's investigations office. The court also demanded that the general prosecution present an explanation over the legality of presenting the criminal suspects to police officers who were the victims of their alleged actions. “[Presenting suspects to police officers who were the victims of their alleged crimes] was illegal because the victims included police staff,” Ahmed Seif Al-Islam, head of the defense team, told Daily News Egypt. “The police should have kept the alleged crime's suspects and victims separated.” The defendants are accused of a long list of charges, which include: participating in a gathering of more than five people, inciting sectarianism, vandalism of public property, injuring 15 security force officers and four policemen, assaulting public workers during their work, and vandalizing nine private vehicles, 11 vans, two microbuses, and two police pick-up trucks. The court decided to include the charge of assaulting public workers during their work, as defined in Article 136 of the criminal law, instead of Article 137 — suggested by the prosecution — which addresses the injuries resulting from such an assault. “The court's decision means that it has read the case's files very carefully and isn't being biased to either side as it aims to understand some unclear parts of the case,” Seif Al-Islam said. “Substituting Article 137 for Article 136 is a message to the prosecution that it hasn't been accurate in its charges,” he added. The defendants previously told Daily News Egypt that they were mistreated during their detention at the police station.
