Attorney-General Abdel Meguid Mahmoud ordered that the cases of some of the defendants in the Omraniya incident be examined in preparation for their possible release. They have been accused of resisting the authorities who were carrying out orders to stop the building of an unlicensed Coptic Church last month.
Mahmoud had received pleas from the defendants asking that they be released for health reasons and because some of them are school or university students.
Coptic Pope Shenouda III last week vowed that the Coptic Church will claim justice for the two Copts that were killed during the clashes with the police. “Their blood is not cheap,” the pope said in his sermon on Wednesday.
News reports, which the church has denied, said the pope is retreating to the Bishoi Monastery in Wadi El-Natroun until all the defendants are released.
Translated from the Arabic Edition.
