Cairo criminal court removes business tycoon Safwan Thabet from terror list

CAIRO – 8 February 2023: The counseling room in Cairo Criminal court ordered on Wednesday removing business tycoon Safwan Thabet from the terrorism list, the CEO of the Juhayna Food Industries company.

This comes two weeks after the Egyptian Public Prosecution released Thabet and his son, Seif El-Din late in January, after years in pretrial detention over accusations of funding terrorist entities.

Thabet was arrested in December 2020 and had been kept in pretrial detention since then, while Seif was arrested a few months later in the same case.

Thabet and his son faced accusations of joining and funding an outlawed group, backing assaults against the army and police personnel, and harming the national economy.

Over the past year, Egypt has released hundreds of pretrial detainees and pardoned several others after President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi ordered launching the National Dialogue and reactivating the Presidential Pardon Committee in April 2022.

Several prominent figures were released from prison since then, including former parliamentarian and rights activist Ziyad El-Eleimy in October, journalist Hisham Fouad, and journalist Khaled Dawoud in April.