Egypt completes draft presidential pardon for Alaa Abdel Fattah

Egyptian authorities have completed key judicial and security reports on the case of jailed activist Alaa Abdel Fattah and several others, marking a significant step forward in the process of reviewing a petition for a presidential pardon.

Judicial and security sources told The New Arab's Arabic edition Al-Araby Al-Jadeed in exclusive statements that Prosecutor General Mohamed Shawky Ayad finalised a judicial report covering Abdel Fattah and several others convicted in criminal and political cases.

The report was formally submitted to the presidency as part of the review of a petition presented by the National Council for Human Rights (NCHR), which called for a presidential pardon.

According to the sources, the prosecutor’s report included details of the legal status of the defendants, the validity of the verdicts against them, and whether the nature of these rulings allows for an exceptional presidential pardon.

It also examined the judicial background of each name included in the petition and offered recommendations on whether they could be covered by clemency, based on constitutional and legal criteria.

In parallel, the interior ministry and the Prisons Authority submitted a separate security and health report with a detailed assessment of the health and psychological condition of Abdel Fattah and the others, an overview of their living conditions inside prison, and an evaluation of their compliance with prison regulations.

The security report also assessed the potential impact of any decision to release them on Egypt’s domestic security situation.

The developments follow President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s directive earlier this week to the relevant authorities to study the NCHR petition.

The petition included seven names: Alaa Abdel Fattah, Saeed Maghly al-Daw Aliwa, Karam Abdel Samea Ismail al-Saadani, Walaa Gamal Saad Mohamed, Mohamed Awad Abdo Mohamed, Mohamed Abdel Khaleq Abdel Aziz Abdel Latif, and Mansour Abdel Jaber Ali Abdel Razek.

Alaa Abdel Fattah, 43, is the most prominent among them.

He has spent most of the past decade behind bars after emerging as one of the influential voices of the 25 January 2011 revolution that toppled President Hosni Mubarak. His name has remained a fixture in Egypt's political and rights landscape, whether through his writings, repeated trials, or sustained international pressure for his release, particularly given his dual Egyptian-British citizenship.

In March this year, Abdel Fattah began a hunger strike protesting his detention conditions, later switching to a partial strike in July. His mother, academic Laila Soueif, also undertook a symbolic hunger strike to draw attention to his case.

In a recent development, Abdel Fattah's name was removed from Egypt's terrorism lists - a move some observers interpreted as a potential legal prelude to a pardon.

He is currently serving a five-year sentence handed down in December 2021 for publishing a social media post about the death of a prisoner - a case that sparked widespread criticism from both Egyptian and international human rights groups.

Judicial and security sources stressed to Al-Araby Al-Jadeed that the completion of these reports represents an important milestone in the process of examining the petition.

However, they cautioned that forwarding the recommendations to the presidency does not guarantee that a pardon will be issued soon. The final decision, they said, will be subject to careful review at the political, security, and legal levels.

Still, the sources suggested it is likely that a decision approving a presidential pardon for Abdel Fattah and the other names included in the petition will be made.