Ashraf Omar’s trial adjourned as prosecution witness fails to appear
A Cairo criminal court holding sessions at Badr Prison on Monday adjourned the trial of Al Manassa cartoonist, translator, and guitarist Ashraf Omar until Dec 14, 2026, after the primary prosecution witness failed to appear, his defense attorney Khaled Ali told Al Manassa.
The missing witness, an investigative officer from Egypt’s National Security Sector, was scheduled to testify and undergo cross-examination regarding the security findings upon which the prosecution built the case against Omar.
Ali said the hearing lasted only minutes before the presiding judge ordered the adjournment due to the witness’s absence.
The attorney stated that he petitioned the court to release Omar on grounds that his pretrial detention has exceeded the legal statutory limit. The court dismissed the petition without granting release, maintaining what Ali described as its routine rejection of defense requests submitted during every hearing.
Ali also requested the court president’s permission to greet Omar inside the courtroom. The judge consented, allowing the defense team to meet Omar.
The team checked on Omar’s well-being, and Omar expressed his gratitude to Ali and the legal defense team for their ongoing efforts, without discussing any further details or extraneous subjects during the brief exchange, Ali told Al Manassa.
Judicial authorities referred Omar, alongside 11 co-defendants including one woman, to trial under Case No. 11846 of 2025 (Fifth Settlement Felonies) last November. The referral followed 16 months of pretrial detention, following his arrest by security forces at his home on July 22, 2024.
Ali previously stated that prosecutors charged Omar during interrogation with “financing a terrorist group” and “participating in a terrorist group to achieve its purposes.”
According to Ali, prosecutors also accused Omar of “using an international internet website to promote ideas and beliefs advocating the commission of terrorist acts, and deliberately disseminating false news, statements, and rumors at home and abroad regarding internal affairs, in a manner calculated to undermine state prestige, disturb public security and peace, spread terror among the public, and harm public interest.”
Ali added that when prosecutors issued the formal referral order to the court on November 15 of last year, they dropped three charges, retained the charge of “financing a terrorist group,” and added the charge of “participating in a terrorist group to achieve its purposes.”
The arrest and sustained imprisonment of Omar sparked an outcry from press freedom institutions. Approximately 822 writers, intellectuals, and artists previously signed a solidarity petition demanding his release, asserting: “The arrest of a young intellectual who chose to practice his passion and exercise his constitutional right to free expression through translation and political cartoons—making notable contributions to both—serves as a dangerous indicator of the regression of cultural and creative freedom.”
Thirty-four Egyptian and international organizations advocating human rights and press freedom, among them Article 19, condemned the detention of journalists in Egypt. On Aug. 7, 2024, 11 human rights groups similarly denounced the security and judicial targeting of journalists and the use of enforced disappearance against media workers solely for discharging their professional journalistic duties.
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) condemned the cartoonist’s arrest. Jonathan Dagher, head of RSF’s Middle East desk, said: “Unfortunately, it is not uncommon in Egypt for journalists to disappear before reappearing in a courtroom a few days later as prisoners. .” Dagher added that such methods have no place in a country governed by the rule of law, emphasizing: “These practices that terrorize journalists, must stop.”
The US-based Committee to Protect Journalists called on Egyptian authorities to immediately release Omar. Amnesty International denounced his detention, stating that the move demonstrates Egyptian authorities’ escalation of “their crackdown on the right to freedom of expression and independent media.”