Sunday, November 16, 2014

Military trial for students at Al-Azhar University

Five students have been referred to military court for trial under Egypt's recent decree. It would appear from this article that they were initially brought to civilian court, but that court ruled that it lacked jurisdiction and the case would have to go to military court instead. "The five defendants are accused of torching a room in the engineering faculty of Al-Azhar University, in addition to rioting and belonging to a terrorist group."

Postscript: For those who think this is pretty bad, Reuters offers this aggravating factor:
Mahmoud Salman, a lawyer and member of the group No To Military Trials for Civilians, criticized the court's decision to transfer the accused on charges relating to acts that took place before the new law was passed, saying it should not be applied retrospectively.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Comments are subject to moderation and must be submitted under your real name. Anonymous comments will not be posted (even though the form seems to permit them).