IBRAHIM HALAWA ACQUITTED OF ALL CHARGES IN EGYPT

Today Ibrahim Halawa, the 21-year-old Irishman arrested in Egypt in August 2013 and held in arbitrary pre-trial detention for over four years, has been acquitted of all charges by the Egyptian court in Cairo.  Ibrahim’s international legal team expresses great relief at this news and continues to stand in solidarity with Ibrahim and his family. 

Ibrahim was arrested when a child aged 17 during protests in Cairo, while sheltering in a mosque.  He was tried en masse with 493 other defendants.  No specific evidence to support the charges in Ibrahim’s case was ever presented, either in court or to his legal team.  During his time in detention in various prison facilities in Egypt, Ibrahim witnessed and was subjected to horrific human rights abuses and inhuman prison conditions, including violent physical abuse, overcrowding, humiliation and appalling lack of sanitation.

Throughout the four years of his detention, international human rights bodies have consistently called for Ibrahim’s release.  Following representations by his international legal team (barristers Caoilfhionn Gallagher QC, Katie O’Byrne and Mark Wassouf, and solicitor Darragh Mackin, KRW Law), a Joint Urgent Appeal from several United Nations bodies (the Special Rapporteurs on Torture, Counter-Terrorism, the Independence of Judges and Lawyers, and Summary Executions) and the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention was sent to the Government of Egypt on 14 August 2015.  In December 2015, the European Parliament voted overwhelmingly to recognise the human rights abuses to which Ibrahim was subjected and to call for Ibrahim’s immediate release and repatriation to Ireland. Ibrahim’s case was adjourned over thirty times by the Egyptian court.

A press release has now been issued jointly by KRW Law, Doughty Street Chambers and the family, available here

Further background is available from RTÉ and the Irish Independent.