Marwa Qinawy, the mother of Youssef Al-Arabi, a victim of indiscriminate shooting, revealed that those convicted of killing her son, Taher Abu Talib, a policeman, and Khaled Abdel Tawab, the son of a parliamentarian, had been granted conditional release from the Presidency. She added that their release is underway, and that the procedures for leaving prison are being completed, after they have served half their sentence.

Qinawy confirmed that she will take all legal measures to stop this illegal release, as she put it. She explained that she learned of the decision by chance after her lawyer informed the convicts of a compensation case in their place of residence in Wadi Al-Natrun Prison.

Lawyer Muhammad Madani explained that the decision was based on the amendments to Prison Organisation Law No. 6 of 2018, which reduced the period of conditional release from three quarters to half, but excluded several crimes, including terrorism, drugs, and gathering, adding that the decision is being studied to take the necessary legal action. Qinawy used her son’s case to promote the “No to Shooting in Celebrations” campaign.

Youssef Al-Arabi was killed in May 2017 in the Hosary area of 6th of October City, after he was hit by a stray bullet fired from a machine gun, which was later discovered to belong to Taheb or Khaled. They were convicted, along with two others, to seven years in prison, in May 2018. But they were not arrested until Qinawy went on a hunger strike to pressure the security services to arrest them, which happened on May 15, 2019.