Beni Suef Court of Appeal has for the second time on Monday postponed to 9 June an appeal to replace the judge of the Minya Criminal Court who sentenced the supporters of ousted President Mohamed Morsy to death.
Mohamed Toson, the lawyer who filed the appeal, misspelled the name of the judge and wrote Saeed Yousef Saeed Sabra whereas he is called Saeed Yousef Saad Sabra. “We will correct the name and resubmit the documents next session,” Toson said.
The court also requested a copy of the minutes of the first session that was held in March.
The appeal accuses Sabra of ignoring the request of the defense to replace him, issuing the sentence without examining the seizures and in the absence of some defendants, and without even hearing the defense's argument in the first place.
The Minya Criminal Court, headed by Saeed Yousef Saad Sabra and assisted by judges Ibrahim Walid and Talaat Gouda, had on 28 April sent documents of 683 defendants, including Mohamed Badie, the supreme guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, to the Grand Mufti to approve their execution.
They were accused of storming the al-Adwa Police Station and threatening public peace. The announcement of the final verdict was slated for 21 June.
The court had also sentenced another 37 Morsy supporters who were accused in a different case to death. Their case documents were sent to the Grand Mufti in March.
It also sentenced 491 others, whose documents were sent to the mufti as well, to life imprisonment for attacking police stations in the towns of Samalout and Matai in Minya.
Khaled al-Komy, the head of the defense team, had said the defendants would face a retrial, the judges would be replaced and the death sentence would be canceled if the appeal is accepted by the court.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
