Patrick Zaki was detained last year and still faces charges of ‘spreading false news’.
An Egyptian court has ordered the release of researcher Patrick Zaki, whose detention in February last year sparked international condemnation, particularly in Italy where he had been studying, his family said.
“I’m jumping for joy!” his mother, Hala Sobhi, told AFP. “We’re now on our way to the police station in Mansoura,” a city in Egypt’s Nile Delta, where Zaki is from.
Zaki still faces charges of “spreading false news”, “harming national security” and “incitement to overthrow the state”, among others.
His trial has been postponed to February, according to the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR), a local NGO with which he worked.
Zaki è stato scarcerato. Uscito dal commissariato di Mansura ha abbracciato la madre
Ansa – ‘Tutto bene’, le prime parole che ha pronunciato, parlando in italiano. Di Maio: ‘Bentornato Patrick’
Patrick Zaki è stato scarcerato da un commissariato di Mansura. Appena uscito, lo studente egiziano dell’Università di Bologna, in carcere da 22 mesi, ha abbracciato la madre. “Tutto bene”: queste le prime parole che Patrick Zaki ha pronunciato, parlando in italiano, appena rilasciato.
Egyptian court releases researcher Patrick Zaki
Aaljazeera – Zaki, who was arrested in Cairo in February 2020, will still have to face trial next year for ‘spreading fake news’.
An Egyptian court ordered the release pending trial of jailed researcher Patrick George Zaki, a move welcomed by human rights defenders and the prime minister of Italy where he had been studying.
The court in the Nile Delta city of Mansoura postponed Zaki’s trial until February 1 to give prosecutors and defence lawyers time to prepare their arguments, said the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR), which represents Zaki, on Tuesday.
