Court sets December 29 as sentencing session of predator Ahmed Bassam Zaki

CAIRO – 14 December 2020: Cairo’s Economic Court set December 29, as the final sentencing session of the trial of, sexual predator Ahmed Bassam Zaki, who is charged with indecent assault against three girls.

The first court session of Zaki trial kicked off last September upon Egypt’s Attorney-General Hamada Al-Sawi order the referral of Zaki to a specialized criminal court to be tried over harassment accusations.

Zaki is facing charges of raping three girls, below 18 years old, and threatening them and blackmailing them, into sexual intercourse.

He is also charged with inciting immorality, stalking, violating society's value by violating his victims’ privacy through constant texting and taking pictures of her while kissing her without their consent using his social media accounts. Zaki is also accused of drug possession and abuse.

Since last July, Multiple Egyptian girls and women filed official complaints against the same man, Ahmed Bassam Zaki, who within days, became a public opinion case, especially after an Instagram page that was set up to expose him identified 93 credible accusers, some as young as 13.

Zaki is a 21-year-old who after graduating from the American International School, one of the most expensive high schools in Cairo, he attended the American University in Cairo starting in 2016, where fellow students say that he quickly gained a reputation for bad behavior, especially with women.

As a freshman, he was pushed out of the college salsa club after numerous women complained of harassment.

According to several testimonies that were posted on social media, Zaki used numerous ruses to gain women’s phone numbers, sometimes claiming to belong to social clubs that did not exist.

He pressured women to provide intimate photos that he later used to coerce them into sexual intercourse, threatening to send the images to their parents if the women refused.

One accuser, an 18-year-old woman he met on Tinder, said he seemed like “a decent guy.” But the conversation quickly turned to demands that she come to his house to perform sex acts. When she refused, he showered her with insults and threatened to go to her parents.