Lawyer detained 3 weeks after prosecution ordered release resurfaces

Detained lawyer Tarek Hussein, whom Egypt’s prosecution issued a release order for three weeks ago, resurfaced on Sunday, after his whereabouts were unknown for the last week.

Hussein’s lawyer Mohamed Azab told Mada Masr that prison authorities have said Hussein is currently in Central Giza Prison, adding that authorities have yet to provide the legal basis for Hussein’s continued detention. Neither Azab, nor Hussein’s brother Mahmoud Mohamed, who was previously detained for two years on charges connected to wearing an anti-torture t-shirt, have been able to visit Tarek in prison.

The prosecution ordered Hussein’s release on the same day of his arrest on June 18. However, the police refused to release Hussein, claiming that he is a suspect in 13 different cases that include charges of assault; damages to marital possessions, despite the fact that he is not married; and a case of electricity theft dating to 1999, when Hussein was five year old.

Hussein was arrested from his house during an arrest campaign that targeted activists and party leaders across the country last month that preceded Parliament’s approval of the controversial maritime border demarcation agreement transferring control over Tiran and Sanafir islands to Saudi Arabia.

Hussein’s lawyers submitted an inquiry to the prosecution last week, requesting his release after they had settled the 13 cases against him by proving that 10 of them were mistakenly attributed to him and obtained decisions to suspend detention in the three other cases.

Hussein, who works at the Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights, was arrested in 2013 in relation to the burning of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Guidance Bureau and again in 2014, during the commemoration of the 25 January Revolution. He was acquitted in both cases.

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