The First Terrorism Circuit of the Cairo Criminal Court on Monday ordered the release of Ahmed Abdul Moneim Aboul Fotouh and suspended his retrial pending a Court of Cassation ruling on a defense appeal, his lawyer Ahmed Aboul Ela Mady told Al Manassa.
The appeal centers on whether prosecutors sent the case to the wrong court. Mady said Ahmed Aboul Fotouh’s original in absentia 15-year hard-labor sentence was issued by an Emergency State Security Criminal Court, meaning any retrial should have been held before an Emergency State Security court, not an ordinary criminal court.
Mady said the criminal court had already reheard the case once, reduced the sentence to five years in prison, and placed Ahmed Aboul Fotouh on the terrorist list for five years. But when the defense challenged that ruling, arguing that the court lacked jurisdiction, the Criminal Appeals Court, headed by Counselor Hamada Al-Sawy, said it could not hear the appeal because the case fell under Emergency State Security jurisdiction.
That left Ahmed Aboul Fotouh in legal limbo, Mady said, prompting the defense to challenge the non-jurisdiction ruling before the Court of Cassation. At Monday’s hearing, he asked the court to release his client pending that decision, arguing that the five-year sentence had effectively been voided.
“Right now he is imprisoned without a sentence,” Mady said.
He added that he submitted a copy of the Cassation appeal and proof that it had been filed. The court then decided to suspend the case conditionally and release Ahmed Aboul Fotouh, he said.
Meanwhile, the Egyptian Gazette, a supplement to the Official Gazette, published a Public Prosecution decision permanently listing his father, Strong Egypt Party leader Abdul Moneim Aboul Fotouh, as a terrorist, alongside Muslim Brotherhood Deputy Supreme Guide Mahmoud Ezzat and student leader Moaz El-Sharqawi. The decision cited their conviction in a final judgment.
Aboul Fotouh, once a leading figure in Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, parted ways with the group after announcing his presidential bid in 2012. He was detained on Feb. 14, 2018, shortly after returning from London, where he had criticized the Egyptian president in a series of media appearances
Mady said he was puzzled by the phrase “permanently listed,” adding that he had not seen such wording before. He noted that the Terrorist Entities Law sets a five-year term for inclusion on the lists.
“What does it mean for the Public Prosecution to list someone as a terrorist permanently?” he said, adding that he had not yet reviewed the decision itself and would study whether it could be challenged.
Last April, nine rights groups called for the immediate release of Ahmed Aboul Fotouh and the dropping of the charges against him. They also called for the release of his father Abdul Moneim Aboul Fotouh, El-Qassas, El-Sharqawi and all prisoners of conscience, political detainees, and rights defenders held over their opposition views.
The rights groups also called for an end to retaliatory security prosecutions, the use of “rotation” to prolong detention, and the practice of sweeping rights defenders and opposition figures into terrorism cases to settle political scores under legal cover.
That statement from April 2025 came days after a security force from the Katameya Traffic Unit arrested Ahmed Abdul Moneim Aboul Fotouh while he was renewing his car license, because of the in absentia 15-year prison sentence in the same case in which his father was convicted. He was taken that day to the Tagammu Prosecution office in New Cairo to sign a request for a retrial after a hearing date had been set.
