Hassan Ratib denied the charges against him, and demanded the defendants’ defense to “call witnesses for the evidence and include the Old Cairo records, the Minya records and the surveillance cameras of a “cafe” (café) in Minya Governorate, and a committee from the Faculty of Archeology, Ain Shams University or Cairo, to indicate if they were The artifacts are real or not, and move to the place of the artifacts.”
Ratib’s defense lawyer, Farid El-Deeb, said that his client “suffers from cancer,” and demanded that he be transferred to a government hospital because there is no hospital in the central prison in which the defendants are serving their pretrial detention period pending the case.
He also asked the court to release his salary “with any guarantee”, so that he could complete the treatment.
The Egyptian Attorney General, Counselor Hamada Al-Sawy, had ordered the referral of former parliamentarian Alaa Hassanein, businessman Hassan Rateb, and 21 others, all of whom are imprisoned, except for two fugitives, to the Criminal Court.
The charges against them include “forming and managing a gang for the purpose of smuggling antiquities out of the country, destroying movable antiquities by deliberately separating part of them, trafficking in antiquities, participating by agreement in counterfeiting antiquities with the intent of defrauding, and conducting excavations in 4 sites, with the aim of obtaining antiquities without a license and trafficking.” and concealing traces with the intent of smuggling.
The Public Prosecution established its evidence on the defendants, Rateb and Hassanein, from the testimonies of 15 witnesses, including those conducting investigations and those responsible for apprehending the accused, in implementation of the permission of the Public Prosecution.
Some of them got to know a number of the accused while they were presented with a legal presentation in the investigations, and what was proven to the Public Prosecution from its inspection of the four excavation sites.
The Public Prosecution also examined the phones of some of the accused and what they contained of video clips and pictures of artifacts, excavation sites and conversations that took place between them regarding them. The committee formed from the ancient Egyptian antiquities area inspected the excavation sites and examined the seized tools and machines.
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