I received the following update from HR-INFO on the trial of Al-Jazeera’s Howeida Taha:
The session yesterday including watching small parts of the 16 tapes that were confiscated on 8 January 2007 claiming that these tapes included acting scenes that Al-Jazeera is planning to broadcast and destroy the reputation of Egypt. The court then asked to hear the witnesses presented by the State Security Prosecutor. The defense requested the session to be postponed for the defense to discuss some of the witnesses and some officers of the Ministry of Interior who were interviewed by Howayda Taha during here preparation for the documentary. In addition, the defense wanted to bring in some of the doctors who were interviewed. The judge refused any of these requests and postponed the case to 28 March to hear the defence statements and disregarding defense requests!
The three human rights organizations announced their fears that standards for a just trial would not be respected in this case. Without these fulfilling the requests of the defense team, it would be difficult to prepare a strong defense that is based on discussion with witnesses and experts. Their statements might change the way the case is heading. In addition, the court refused to watch the tapes completely in order to guarantee that the tapes really destroy the reputation of the country or not, especially that the material in the tapes is still unedited.
It is worth mentioning that while discussing the witnesses, it appeared that there has been contradictions in the statement of one of the state security officer who took the witness stand upon the request of the prosecutor. The witness is supposedly the one who carried the investigation for this case. His answers varied from a strong belief that the material on the tapes are fabricated to him saying in the same session that he was not sure of Howayda Taha’s time of travel and that he was surprised that the material in the tapes are fabricated after he watched it with millions of others on a Television after copies of the tape were leaked in a controversial manner!