The Battle of the Camel Cairo – Akram Ali The Cairo Criminal Court, headed by Judge Mostafa Hassan Abdallah, has stopped the trial of 24 people accused of killing protestors in the Battle of the Camel on the 2nd and 3rd February, pending the response of the tenth suspect, Murtada Mansour.
The court continued on asking witnesses questions regarding the Battle, and was surprised when one of the suspects, Ragab Hilal Hameida cried during his testimony and said: “I’m here and I stand by the court because I can see myself heading towards righteousness with it, and I believe justice will be achieved at the hands of the court.”
After that, the court listened to the defence witnesses in the case, as witness Furjani Salameh, who owns a Travel Agency and was in the Square at the time of the incident, confirmed that he was at Mustafa Mahmoud Square with the suspect Yusuf Khattab who was riding one of the camels and took pictures of himself riding the camel.
Salameh added that they all headed to the Square after the county closed off the Pyramids area at the time, which negatively affected travel agents and led them to talk to al Giza’s mayor to find a solution for their problem, after which he told them to head to the Square and protest to demand a solution, and that’s exactly what they did.
Salameh confirmed that he received 2000 Egyptian pounds from Khattab to give to the families of those whose relatives were caught in the Battle of the Camel.
Witness Safwat Mahrous said that he was in Mustafa Mahmoud Square on the 2nd February protesting with Mubarak’s loyalists as they demanded the return of stability. The witness added that he rode his car with Khattab and took him to Al Giza around 5:30.
He continued by saying that while he was outside the Faculty of Commerce at the University of Cairo he saw two of the suspects number 8 and 9, Sherief Wali and Walid Saleh and Salah Abdel Karim member of the local Giza Assembly; and they all headed to the Square together and were joined by another of the suspect number 7, Yusuf Khattab outside the Ministry of Agriculture.
The Judge’s attention was highly drawn to the witness’s reactions and said to him: “have you come here to say ‘no’ to everything?”
Al Nasr Construction company employee, Ibrahim Kamel said that he went out on February 2nd to the Faculty of Commerce at the University of Cairo and marched with others led by him to the Square with Khattab and Sherief and other leaders from the National Party.
In response to the court’s accusation of the question ‘what was the reason behind this march running to Mustafa Mahmoud Square?’ he said: “so that people would stop burning Egypt down and regaining stability.” So the court asked him: “do you mean protestors in Tahrir Square?” to which he answered “yes” to.