CAIRO - The Bar Association denied Saturday that two lawyers, sentenced to five years in prison for assaulting a junior judge, had submitted an apology to him, as their appeal hearing resumes Sunday in the Delta city of Tanta amid mounting tension between Egypt's lawyers and judges. "The two detained lawyers did not apologise to the Prosecutor General or any other judicial authority in relation to their case, which will be heard on Sunday," a statement from the Bar Association's branch in Tanta said Saturday. It added that the news reports related to this apology or any moves were baseless. The two lawyers, Ehab Saa'i and Moustafa Fattouh, were sentenced to jail for five years for assaulting prosecutor Basem Abul Roos. During their appeal session more than two weeks ago, the chief judge deferred their lawsuit to July 4, and rejected their request for release. Galal Shalabi, the head of Bar Association's branch in Tanta, also slammed the reports about apologies, saying he had no idea about any such apology. "As a defence team for the two lawyers, we have no information about this. However, if something like this happens, we will withdraw from defending them," Shalabi said. He added that the lawyers, who would take the brunt of defending the two lawyers, would include Hamdi Khalif, the head of the Bar Association, Ragai Attia, Montasser el-Zayyat and some other veteran lawyers. "The defence team will ask for their release and order a re-investigation in the case," Shalabi said. Around 359 lawyers in black robes held a protest outside the Heliopolis Court in Cairo Saturday in solidarity with their detained colleagues. "We are waiting for the decision of the court to see what our next step will be," said Hani Fahmi, one of the protesting lawyers. An administrative court in Tanta, meanwhile, deferred a case calling for dropping the charges against the detained lawyers, on the ground that the assaulted judge and police officers were not included in the referral decree. On the other side, Ahmed el-Zind, the head of the Judges' Club, would discuss an initiative to resolve the dispute with the judges forwarded by Sayed el-Badawi, the chief of the opposition Al-Wafd Party. "The initiative will be discussed in a meeting of the general assembly meeting of the Judges Club within a few days," said Mahmoud el-Sherif, the secretary general of the independent judicial union. El-Sherif added that any settlement should be within the borders of justice, and "there could no concessions in the cases filed against lawyers".
