Written by Ahmed Ismail
Tuesday, February 28, 2023 12:49 PM
The Court of Cassation ruled to reject the appeal submitted by the defendant in the Zamalek apartment case, and the appeal of the second defendant was dismissed.
The court decided to cancel the fine imposed on the 5-year prison sentence issued against them, accusing them of possessing and trading in antiquities in the case known in the media as the “Zamalek Apartment.”
The previous session witnessed the defendant handing himself over to the Court of Cassation, which is required by law to accept his appeal from a formal point of view, so that the security forces retain him to implement the sentence issued against him.
The Cairo Criminal Court, headed by Counselor Abdel Hamid Hammam, and the membership of Counselors Mahmoud Yahya Rashdan, Fatima Qandil and Abdullah Salam, had sentenced the owner of the Zamalek apartment and his wife to 5 years in prison, on charges of trafficking in antiquities and a fine of one million pounds.
Counselor Hamada Al-Sawy, the Public Prosecutor, earlier referred the owner of the Zamalek apartment and his wife, to the Criminal Court, for their trafficking in antiquities, by their habit of buying, selling and exchanging them, and their possession of one thousand three hundred and eighty-four artifacts (1384) dating back to different periods of ancient Egyptian civilization, Islamic eras and the era of the Egyptian Dynasty. (Muhammad Ali), which is subject to legal protection and is not registered with the Supreme Council of Antiquities.
The two defendants did not notify the Council of it to register it within the legally prescribed period, knowing its antiquity. In addition, they hid one hundred and nineteen pieces (119) of the property of the (Muhammad Ali) family, which the Revolutionary Command Council issued a decision on November 8, 1953 to confiscate.
The Public Prosecution had established evidence before the defendants from the testimony of sixteen witnesses, including the guards of the property in which the apartment is located, one of the defendants’ neighbors, and the agent of the Antiquities Investigation Department who conducted the investigations, in addition to what was found by the Public Prosecution from its inspection of the apartment and the stacked artifacts in it that were found by the Execution Department of the Court of Cassation. South Cairo Primary School during its procedures, in addition to what the Public Prosecution was able to seize from other artifacts and important documents in the apartment after it was emptied from the accumulation.
