The verdict issued by Circuit 10 of the North Cairo Criminal Court included 15 years in prison for the first convict in absentia, and life imprisonment for the second and third convicts in absentia, given their escape.
On April 6, the Public Prosecution Office in Egypt announced that the extensive investigations it had conducted into what is known in the media as the rape of the “Vermont girl”, and the accompanying recordings, reports and testimonies, led to proving the accusations against 3 of the accused in a second incident, during which they raped a girl on the northern coast. 2015.
Accordingly, the Public Prosecution ordered the referral of the three accused to the competent criminal court.
This comes despite the fact that, on May 11, the Public Prosecution issued a temporary order that “there is no reason to file a criminal case in the case of a woman who had intercourse without her consent in the Fairmont Nile City Hotel in 2014, due to the insufficiency of evidence in it by the accused,” and ordered the release of the detainees in pretrial detention. In the case, unless they are wanted in relation to other cases.
The Public Prosecution affirmed that “this decision is temporary”, and that it “could reopen the investigation into the case if new, coherent evidence is presented, provided that the legal statute of limitations for the crime has not passed.”
An Egyptian judicial source confirmed to “Sky News Arabia” when the prosecution’s decision was issued, that the period available for the possibility of reopening the case again is 10 years, starting from the date of May 11, 2021, in which the prosecutor’s decision was issued to save the case.
Article 15 of the Egyptian Criminal Code stipulates the expiration of the criminal case for felonies committed 10 years ago.
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