activist Alaa Abdel Fattah

The Cassation Court decided on Thursday to refer to a new circuit the challenge filed by activist Alaa Abdel Fattah into his five-year jail sentence in Shura Council riots case.

The new session for Abdel Fattah's retrial will take place on November 8.

Abdel Fattah has earlier filed a challenge asking for revoking the jail sentence and holding a new retrial.

In a 2015 retrial, Abdel Fattah was sentenced to five years in jail by Cairo Criminal Court after he was found guilty of involvement in riots that took place outside the Shura Council on November 26, 2013.

Abdel Fattah and 24 other defendants are accused of assaulting policemen, disrupting public order, thuggery, and violating protest law.

In their original trial, Abdel Fattah and the others were sentenced to 15 years in jail and fined 100,000 pounds each.

Source: MENA