CAIRO: Egypt's State office of the Supreme Administrative Court has proposed the canceling of a court verdict against former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, former Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif and former Interior Minister Habib al-Adly over the telecom blackout they allegedly ordered during the country's January 25 uprising. Under the court ruling, the three former top officials were ordered to pay 540 million Egyptian pounds in fines. According to the proposal, those filed the case against the former officials did not “provide evidence that the telecom blackout caused harm.” Egyptian activists have been campaigning against the telecom operators in the country, saying the blackout caused a large number of deaths as a result of being unable to contact friends and family to warn them away from dangerous areas as well as not being able to contact emergency services. The court has postponed the trial to review the office's proposal. It has said that it would merge all appeals together under one case and would hand down a verdict for all of them. The court has ordered a photocopy of a file that allegedly concerns a meeting of a committee on January 20 in Cairo's IT center, the Smart Village, and chaired by Nazif. It is unclear what the document shows, but some believe it could have been at that meeting when the government laid the groundwork for the cutting of networks in the country. The initial verdict in the case said that the government deliberately shut down the networks in an effort to stem the protests. BM
