Prosecutor-General Hesham Barakat accepted a complaint filed by attorney Essam Qandil and ordered the Cairo appeals prosecution to begin investigating eight activists on Monday. The complaint accused the activists of raiding the state security building, stealing documents among other accusations. The accused individuals include activist Mustafa Al-Naggar, detained founder of April 6 Ahmed Maher, 6 April member and one of the founders Abdulrahman Ezz, Abdulrahman Yusuf al-Qaradawi, Asmaa Mahfouz, Mohamed Adel, Shouka, among others. Manager of Qandil's law firm Othman Mohamed Othman, said that members of 6 April raided the state security building in 2011 and "leaked phone calls by the accused individuals were published on television channel Al-Qahera Wal-Nas". "Not one of the accused has refuted the charge or denied the credibility of the phone calls," he added. Qandil has previously represented arrested individuals from the Maspero events in 2011 and was outspoken against high ranking military members. Host of the show "Black Box" on Al-Qahera Wal-Nas satellite channel Abdul Raheem Aly has claimed that he possesses several phone call recordings between the activists and foreign and domestic individuals; where they were apparently revealing information in a military mission style. The host alleges that the voices of the people in the phone calls are the activists mentioned above. This investigation comes after the most recent crackdown on activists where 22 December saw three year jail sentences handed to prominent activist Ahmed Douma, 6 April Youth movement founder Ahmed Maher and the movement's political bureau member Mohamed Adel. Activist Alaa Abdel Fattah was also detained and is currently facing several charges while several other activists have been detained in Alexandria for breaching the protest law.
