Irish teen detained further as judge walks out of trial

The family of an Irish teenager detained in Egypt for the past year face a further anxious wait for his fate to be determined after the mass trial he was to be part of was dramatically postponed.

Ibrahim Halawa, 18, from Firhouse in Dublin, was one of 480 defendants brought before a court in Cairo yesterday to jointly face charges — some carrying the death penalty — arising from arrests during a crackdown on peaceful protests in the city last year.

But the judge walked out before hearing evidence and the defendants were removed from court, leaving questions hanging over their whereabouts and what will happen to them next.

Calls were made on the Irish and EU governments to use the delay to intensify efforts to have Ibrahim freed on the grounds that all proper legal procedures have been breached.

Ibrahim was 17 — legally a child — at the time of the arrest during a family holiday, he has been detained in squalid conditions for a year without trial, he has been beaten in custody and he has not been told what individual charges he faces.

Amnesty International yesterday declared him an Amnesty Prisoner of Conscience, inviting supporters around the world to write to the Egyptian authorities to appeal for his release.

Reprieve, a British charity that campaigns for fair trials, has also taken up his case. Maya Fao, head of the charity’s death penalty team, said after yesterday’s developments: “Today’s events show this ‘trial’ for the farce it really is.

“We’re now likely to see further chaos and even more delays, but Ibrahim’s illegal detention has already gone on too long. The Irish Government and the European Union need to take urgent action to secure his immediate release.”

Ibrahim was awaiting his Leaving Cert results when he was arrested along with three of his sisters, all Irish citizens, who were released without charged after three months in detention.

Another sister, Nosayba Halawa, has returned to Cairo to monitor events. She was not allowed into court yesterday but met afterwards with the Irish Ambassador to Egypt, Isolde Moylan, another Department of Foreign Affairs official and a member of the EU delegation to Egypt who were allowed in.

The department said last night: “We will continue to provide consular assistance to Ibrahim in Cairo and to his family in Dublin, and at a political level we continue to raise his case bilaterally with the Egyptian authorities and at European level.”