Egypt to try ex-student for sexual assault, blackmail in #MeToo case

Egypt’s public prosecution has referred Ahmed Bassam Zaki for criminal trial on charges of sexually assaulting three girls and attempting to blackmail them. (File/Egypt’s Public Prosecution Office — Egypt Justice)
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Updated 02 September 2020
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Egypt to try ex-student for sexual assault, blackmail in #MeToo case

  • Public prosecutor referred Zaki to the criminal court for trial
  • 22 year-old is charged with assaulting and threatening three girls under the age of 18

CAIRO: Egypt’s chief prosecutor Tuesday referred a former student of an elite university to the criminal court for trial on charges of sexual assault of three minors, in a case that added fuel to the #MeToo movement in the Arab world’s most populous country.
Public Prosecutor Hamada El-Sawy said former student Ahmed Bassam Zaki is also charged with blackmailing and sexually harassing the women, who were minors at the time the alleged crimes took place.
No date has been set for trial. The suspect could face up to life in prison if convicted.
Zaki was arrested in July after the allegations against him went viral, resulting in a firestorm on social media. The #MeToo movement aims to hold accountable those involved in sexual misconduct and those who cover it up.
Several attempts at the time by The Associated Press to contact his family or his lawyer were unsuccessful.
According to accusations posted on social media, the former student would mine the pool of mutual friends on Facebook, online groups or school clubs.
He would start with flattery, then pressure the women and girls to share intimate photos that he later used to blackmail them with to have sex with him, according to these accusations. If they did not, he would threaten to send the pictures to their family.
The former student hails from a wealthy family and studied at the American International School, one of Egypt’s most expensive private high schools, and the American University in Cairo. AUC officials said he left the university in 2018.
Claims against 22-year-old Zaki erupted online in July in the form of testimonies including an alleged rape and instances of assault against dozens of girls and women, some involving blackmail.
Some alleged incidents involved girls as young as 14.
Zaki, a former student of some of Egypt’s most elite schools and the American University in Cairo, was arrested on July 4 and confessed to assaulting several girls, according to the prosecution.
The case kickstarted a #MeToo campaign in Egypt, where women complain of rampant sexual harassment, an offense that was only criminalized since 2014.
United Nations surveys say most women in the conservative country have been subject to harassment ranging from catcalling, pinching, groping or worse.
Women are often reluctant to speak out fearing public shame and being blamed for dressing or acting “provocatively.”
Egypt’s parliament last month approved amendments to the criminal code granting victims of sexual assault the right to anonymity.
Zaki’s case, activists say, shows that misogyny cuts across the country’s stark class lines. Many in Egypt have previously portrayed sexual harassment as a problem of poor urban youth.
Sexual assault and harassment are deep-seated problems in Egypt, where victims must also fight the undercurrent of a conservative culture that typically ties female chastity to a family’s reputation. In courts, the burden of proof lies heavily on the victims of such crimes.
The allegations against the former student were collected by the Instagram account @assaultpolice. Since then, the account has played a crucial role in revealing an alleged gang rape that shook Egyptian society in recent weeks. Allegations of sexual misconduct also emerged against several rights activists.
The alleged gang rape took place at a five-star Cairo hotel in 2014, but word of the assault surfaced only in July after the former student’s case was made public.
Last week, prosecutors said seven suspects left the country after allegations of the gang rape went viral. Five of the suspects arrived in Lebanon, according to Lebanese authorities. Acting on a request from Egypt, three were arrested late Friday in a village north of Beirut, while the other two apparently left Lebanon.
Another nine suspects were arrested in Egypt, including one last week as he attempted to flee the country. Prosecutors ordered five suspects to remain in custody for four days pending investigations. They ordered the release of four others, three of them on bail of 100,000 Egyptian pounds ($6,315).

(With AP and AFP)


Iran says more than 400 killed since start of war with Israel

Updated 5 sec ago
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Iran says more than 400 killed since start of war with Israel

Attacks have claimed the lives of over 400 defenseless Iranians and left 3,056 others wounded

TEHRAN: Israeli strikes on Iran have killed more than 400 people since they began last week, Iran’s health ministry said in an updated toll on Saturday, as fighting raged between the two foes.

“As of this morning, Israeli attacks have claimed the lives of over 400 defenseless Iranians and left 3,056 others wounded by missiles and drones,” health ministry spokesman Hossein Kermanpour said in a post on X.

Erdogan says UNRWA to open office in Turkiye, calls for more support for agency

Updated 40 min 29 sec ago
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Erdogan says UNRWA to open office in Turkiye, calls for more support for agency

  • Turkiye has called Israel’s assault on Gaza genocide and its move to ban UNRWA a violation of international law
  • “We expect our organization and each member state to provide financial and moral support to UNRWA to thwart Israel’s games,” Erdogan said

ANKARA: The United Nations’ Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA will open an office in Ankara, President Tayyip Erdogan said on Saturday, urging Muslim countries to give the agency more support after Israel banned it.

Israel last year banned UNRWA, saying it had employed members of Palestinian militant group Hamas who took part in the October 2023 attacks on Israel that triggered the Gaza war.

Turkiye has called Israel’s assault on Gaza genocide and its move to ban UNRWA a violation of international law, particularly amid worsening humanitarian conditions in Gaza, which has been reduced to rubble with millions displaced.

Addressing foreign ministers of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation in Istanbul, Erdogan said opening an Ankara UNRWA office would deepen Turkiye’s support for the agency.

“We must not allow UNRWA, which plays an irreplaceable role in terms of taking care of Palestinian refugees, to be paralyzed by Israel. We expect our organization and each member state to provide financial and moral support to UNRWA to thwart Israel’s games,” Erdogan said.

A Turkish diplomatic source said Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini were expected to sign an accord on the sidelines of the OIC meeting in Istanbul on establishing the office.

Turkiye has given UNRWA $10 million a year between 2023 and 2025. In 2024, it also transferred $2 million and sent another $3 million from its AFAD disaster management authority.

Israel has handed responsibility for distributing much of the aid it lets into Gaza to a new US-backed group, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which operates three sites in areas guarded by Israeli troops. The UN has rejected the GHF operation saying its distribution work is inadequate, dangerous and violates humanitarian impartiality principles.

Previously, aid to Gaza’s 2.3 million residents had been distributed mainly by UN agencies such as UNRWA with thousands of staff at hundreds of sites across the enclave.


Israel says killed three Iranian commanders in fresh wave of strikes

Updated 51 min 58 sec ago
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Israel says killed three Iranian commanders in fresh wave of strikes

  • Israel’s military said its fighter jets successfully targeted top Iranian official Saeed Izadi
  • It also announced the deaths of two other commanders from Iran’s Revolutionary Guards

JERUSALEM: Israel said Saturday it had killed three Iranian commanders in its unprecedented bombing campaign across the Islamic republic, which Foreign Minister Gideon Saar claimed had already delayed Tehran’s presumed nuclear plans by two years.

Israel’s military said its fighter jets successfully targeted top Iranian official Saeed Izadi, in charge of coordination with Palestinian militant group Hamas, in Qom south of Tehran and announced the deaths of two other commanders from Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.

As Israel continued to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities and military targets, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said in an interview that by the country’s own assessment, it had “already delayed for at least two or three years the possibility for them to have a nuclear bomb.”

“We will do everything that we can do there in order to remove this threat,” Saar told German newspaper Bild, asserting Israel’s onslaught would continue.

Israel and Iran have traded wave after wave of devastating strikes, after Israel launched its aerial campaign on June 13, saying Tehran was on the verge of developing a nuclear weapon — an ambition Iran has denied.

Israel said it had attacked Iran’s Isfahan nuclear site for a second time after its air force said it had also launched salvos against missile storage and launch sites in central Iran.

The military later said it struck military infrastructure in southwest Iran.

US President Donald Trump warned on Friday that Tehran has a “maximum” of two weeks to avoid possible American air strikes, as Washington weighs whether to join Israel’s unprecedented bombing campaign.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi arrived in Istanbul on Saturday, for a meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation to discuss the conflict.

Top diplomats from Britain, France and Germany met Araghchi in Geneva on Friday, and urged him to resume talks with the United States that had been derailed by Israel’s attacks.

But Araghchi told NBC News after the meeting that “we’re not prepared to negotiate with them (the United States) anymore, as long as the aggression continues.”

Trump was dismissive of European diplomatic efforts, telling reporters, “Iran doesn’t want to speak to Europe. They want to speak to us. Europe is not going to be able to help in this.”

Trump also said he is unlikely to ask Israel to stop its attacks to get Iran back to the table.

“If somebody’s winning, it’s a little bit harder to do,” he said.

Any US involvement would likely feature powerful bunker-busting bombs that no other country possesses to destroy an underground uranium enrichment facility in Fordo.

A US-based NGO, the Human Rights Activists News Agency, said on Friday that based on its sources and media reports at least 657 people have been killed in Iran, including 263 civilians.

Iran’s health ministry said on Saturday at least 350 people had been killed in the Israeli strikes including military commanders, nuclear scientists and civilians.

Nasrin, 39, who gave only her first name, explained she had been thrown across a room in her Tehran home by an Israeli strike.

“I just hit the wall. I don’t know how long I was unconscious. When I woke up, I was covered in blood from head to toe,” she said as she received treatment at Hazrat Rasool hospital in the Iranian capital.

Traffic police and Fars news agency reported congestion on roads into Tehran on Saturday, indicating some inhabitants were returning to the capital.

Internet access remained highly unstable and limited in Tehran on Saturday, with slow connections and many sites still inaccessible, according to AFP journalists.

Iran’s retaliatory strikes have killed at least 25 people, in Israel, according to official figures.

Overnight, Iran said it targeted central Israel with drones and missiles.

Israeli rescuers said there were no casualties after an Iranian missile struck a residential building in Beit She’an.

At the site of the strike in the north of Israel, mounds of soil had been gouged from the ground and the wall of a ground-floor room destroyed.

Israel’s National Public Diplomacy Directorate said more than 450 missiles have been fired at the country so far, along with about 400 drones.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said they had targeted military sites and air force bases.

Western powers have repeatedly expressed concerns about the rapid expansion of Iran’s nuclear program, questioning in particular the country’s accelerated uranium enrichment.

The International Atomic Energy Agency’s chief Rafael Grossi has said that Iran is the only country without nuclear weapons to enrich uranium to 60 percent.

However, it added that there was no evidence Tehran had all the components to make a functioning nuclear warhead.

Grossi told CNN it was “pure speculation” to say how long it would take Iran to develop weapons.


GCC ambassadors raise concern about safety of nuclear facilities amid Israel-Iran conflict

Updated 21 June 2025
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GCC ambassadors raise concern about safety of nuclear facilities amid Israel-Iran conflict

  • The ambassadors warned Grossi during a meeting in Vienna about the “dangerous repercussions” of targeting nuclear facilities
  • The warning comes after the Israeli military said at one point that it had struck Iran's Bushehr facility, but later said the comment had been made by mistake

CAIRO: Gulf Cooperation Council ambassadors have expressed concerns to UN nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi about the safety of nuclear facilities close to their countries amid the Israeli-Iranian crisis, Qatar state news agency reported on Saturday.
The ambassadors warned Grossi during a meeting in Vienna about the “dangerous repercussions” of targeting nuclear facilities.
The warning comes after the Israeli military said at one point on Thursday that it had struck the Russian-built Bushehr facility, but later said the comment had been made by mistake. Bushehr is Iran’s only operating nuclear power plant, which sits on the Gulf coast.
The potential consequences of an attack on the plant — contaminating the air and water — have long been a concern in the Gulf states.


Exiled former Tunisia leader sentenced to 22 years: reports

Updated 21 June 2025
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Exiled former Tunisia leader sentenced to 22 years: reports

TUNIS: A Tunis court has sentenced exiled former president Moncef Marzouki in absentia to 22 years in prison for offenses related to “terrorism,” Tunisian media reported on Saturday.
Four other defendants, including his former adviser Imed Daimi and former head of the national bar association Abderrazak Kilani, were also handed the same sentence late Friday.
A staunch critic of President Kais Saied who has been living in France, Marzouki had already been sentenced in absentia to 12 years in prison in two separate cases, one involving “provoking disorder.”
The latest ruling came after a press conference held in Paris, during which he, along with Daimi and Kilani, sharply criticized state institutions and members of the Tunisian judiciary, reports said.
Marzouki, who served as Tunisia’s third president from 2011 to 2014, said in a statement the ruling was “surreal.”
He said it came as part of a “series of verdicts that have targeted some of Tunisia’s finest men and continue to provoke the world’s mockery.”
Tunisia emerged as the Arab world’s only democracy following the ousting of longtime ruler Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in 2011, after it kicked off the Arab Spring uprisings.
But since a sweeping power grab by Saied in July 2021 when he dissolved parliament and began ruling by decree, rights groups have warned of a sharp decline in Tunisian civil liberties.
In April, a mass trial saw around 40 public figures, mainly critics of the authorities, sentenced to long terms on charges including plotting against the state.
Other media figures and lawyers also critical of Saied have been prosecuted and detained under a law he enacted in 2022 to prohibit “spreading false news.”