Egyptian Front for Human Rights has released a monitoring report about The performance of Terrorism Circuits in the pre-trial phase during the first half of 2021.
Within the framework of the Egyptian Front for Human Rights’ follow up on the performance of the Terrorism Circuits during the hearings for reviewing the renewal of detention orders for defendants before the counselling chamber, the Egyptian Front continues monitoring the release decisions, counting the number of sessions and cases pending investigation, in addition to the number of the defendants during the first half of 2021.
Compared to the last half of 2020 in which the Egyptian Front has monitored decisions issued by 6 Terrorism Circuits which were decreased to become a nearly one circuit in the first half of 2021. With exception to one session held by counselor Mohamed Saeed El-Sherbiny, head of the Fifth Circuit, and one session held by counselor Mohamed Sherine Fahmy, head of the Fifth Circuit, the work of Terrorism Circuits in reviewing the renewals of pretrial detention was limited to the Third Circuit of the Criminal Terrorism Court, headed by counselor Mohamed Kamel Abdel Sattar, who has started his work as a head of the Circuit in late November of the last year (2020). The Circuit has specialized in considering the renewals of pretrial detention in cases under investigation by the Supreme State Security Prosecution (SSSP). Then, it has become almost the only Circuit which considers the renewals of pre-trial detention in the first half of 2021.
According to the monitoring of the Egyptian Front of Human Rights during the first half of 2021 for the performance of the Terrorism Circuits in the pre-trial stage, only three Circuits were held with a total of 67 sessions, during which they considered the orders to renew imprisonment of at least 15288 accused persons distributed over 1,004 cases. During this period, they have issued decisions to release 419 defendants at least with a percentage of no more than 2.7%.
In a significant decline from the percentage of releases and even the orders of renewing imprisonment during 2020, the Terrorism Circuits have released 758 defendants out of the total of the orders of renewing imprisonment for 20998 accused persons throughout the year, with a percentage that has reached 3.6%.
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