The debated conversion to Islam of a Coptic Christian pharmacist goes on trial again before a Cairo appellate court on June 12.
The wife and family of Dr. Hanna Kamal Hanna Morgan, 38, have been battling for more than a year to cancel the pharmacist's certificate of conversion to Islam, issued under the auspices of Al-Azhar, Cairo's prestigious center of Islamic learning and the highest Muslim authority in Egypt.
When Morgan signed the document 16 months ago, he had been undergoing treatment in Behman Hospital in Helwan for illness diagnosed by his attending physicians as paranoid schizophrenia. He was released from the mental hospital without any notice to his Christian family, who were later informed by local State Security police that he had become a Muslim.
"An Islamic group forced my brother to convert to Islam while he was being treated for severe mental illness," Dr. Raif Kamal Hanna stated on June 2. Dr. Hanna charged that his brother's forced conversion had occurred "under the blessings of local authorities" in El-Fayoum, 70 miles south of Cairo, where Morgan's wife and children live.
At a previous Court of Appeals hearing on May 14, Milad Saroufim, a prominent Coptic attorney, presented evidence to the court that the certificate presented by Al-Azhar as proof of Morgan's conversion to Islam had not been properly documented by the registration office, as required by Egyptian law.
The attorney representing Al-Azhar in the case promptly requested the court for a postponement in the case, Saroufim told Compass.
The lower court where the lawsuit was originally filed had, after months of stalling, refused to hear the case, declaring that Morgan's conversion had automatically dissolved his Christian marriage, so that his former wife had "no legal relation" with him authorizing her to open such a case.
Saroufim said he expected to deliver his closing argument on the case at next Tuesday's Court of Appeals hearing. But the lawyer said he did not expect the bench of three judges hearing the case to give their appellate decision that same day.
"I expect that the court will postpone that again," he said. "But I do expect to win this case, because justice is on our side."
Meanwhile, Morgan's family learned in early June that a court case had been opened in the El-Fayoum courts by Morgan himself, requesting custody of the couple's two young daughters. Under the statutes of Islamic law observed in Egypt, a Muslim father automatically retains custody of his minor children.
The couple's two daughters, Mirna, 6, and Dina, 16 months, were listed as Muslims on their father's new Muslim identity papers.
A hearing on this case is set for June 17 in El-Fayoum.
According to Saroufim, a mockery has been made of a court order issued three months ago to determine the mental health and legal competency of his client's husband. The local judge hearing Case No. 13-B, filed initially in El-Fayoum by Morgan's wife, had ordered the pharmacist to submit himself for a 45-day period of observation at El-Khanka Hospital, in order to ascertain his mental condition.
In May, Morgan finally reported to the hospital as ordered, but hospital officials reportedly sent him back home to El-Fayoum the very same day, Saroufim said.
The hospital then telephoned Morgan's wife, Dr. Ines Emil Kamal, requesting her to come for an interview regarding her husband's behavior and condition.
"I accompanied Dr. Ines to this hospital on May 27, and stayed with her while she was questioned," Saroufim said. Once the hospital has submitted its medical report to the El-Fayoum court, Saroufim said, another hearing date will be set in the 13-B case. The lawyer said he was prepared to object to the validity of the hospital's mental assessment.