WATANI International
23 May 2010
Last week saw the adjournment of the Qena criminal court, which is seeing the trial of the three men suspected of conducting the Christmas Eve drive-by shooting in Nag Hammadi, Upper Egypt, on 6 January—Coptic Christmas is celebrated on 7 January. The shooting occurred in front of Mar-Youhanna church as the congregation left after Midnight Mass, and left six Copts and one Muslim dead, and 19 injured. The court adjourned till 19 June to hear the testimony of Anba Kyrillos, Bishop of Nag Hammadi.
The other crime that has been linked to the Nag Hammadi case is that of Girgis Baroumi, the 21-year-old Coptic poultry vendor from a village near Farshout, some 15km north of Nag Hammadi, who was charged with raping a 12-year-old Muslim girl from a nearby village last November. The alleged rape crime has been used as a pretext for the violent attack waged last November by the Muslims of Farshout against the Copts there, which cost the Copts some EGP4.6 million in damages, apart from the immeasurable moral terror. It was also used to justify the Nag Hammadi crime as vengeance for the girl’s honour.
Baroumi, however, who was arrested last November before the Farshout attack but was never referred to court till directly the Nag Hammadi crime two months later, insists he is innocent of the rape charge. His lawyers insist there is not a shred of evidence to incriminate him; rather, the official medical report reveals that it was physically impossible for the rape crime to occur in the manner the girl alleges it occurred. They have asked to re-question the girl and her parents, but the court refused. They also demanded that the court moves to the alleged scene of the crime which, they say, is a busy road on which a rape crime in broad daylight could have never passed unnoticed, but again the court rejected the demand.
The prevalent view among Copts is that Baroumi has been falsely accused in order to use the crime as a pretext for the Farshout attack, and to depict the Nag Hammadi crime as an honour crime rather than a sectarian one.
Last Monday, the Qena criminal court, the same court that is seeing the Nag Hammadi crime, stepped down from the Baroumi case, citing conflict of interest between the two cases.
Baroumi’s defence team had previously demanded that the case be seen before another judicial circle, also citing conflict of interest, but their demand had been overruled. A decision has yet to be taken by the supreme court on the matter.