CAIRO -- A court declared that Egypt's 3-month-old state of emergency expired Tuesday, two days earlier than expected, but the military and security officials held off from implementing the ruling and lifting a nighttime curfew, amid worries that the measures' end will fuel protests by supporters of ousted President Mohammed Morsi.
Mr. Morsi, meanwhile, held his first extensive meeting with lawyers in a prison near the Mediterranean city of Alexandria. He had been held in secret military detention with almost no contact with the outside world since he was ousted in a July 3 popularly backed coup, but he was moved to a regular prison last week after the first session of his trial on charges of inciting murder.
The lawyers, who hail from the Muslim Brotherhood and its allies, today will relay a message from Mr. Morsi addressing the Egyptian people and "all parties," according to Mr. Morsi's son Osama, a lawyer who was among those who met him. In an interview, the son said his father is still refusing to allow any lawyer to represent him in the trial because he insists that he remains president and does not recognize the tribunal.
The state of emergency and a nighttime curfew imposed along with it have been aimed at helping authorities tighten their security grip on near-daily protests that frequently descended into violence by pro-Morsi supporters and his Muslim Brotherhood demanding his reinstatement and reversal of what the call an illegal coup against democracy.
On Monday, Interior Minister Mahmoud Ibrahim, who heads the security forces, said the state of emergency would expire Thursday, and that security reinforcements would deploy in the streets at that time -- a sign of the worries over intensified protests.
The surprise ruling by the Cairo Administrative Court ordering the lifting Tuesday appeared to have caught the government off guard -- and authorities said they were not immediately implementing it until the court formally notifies them of the decision.
The confusion came because the state of emergency was initially announced for a month on Aug. 14. But the government renewed it for another two months on Sept. 12. The court said that means it ends on Nov. 12, not Nov. 14.
The Cabinet put out a statement saying it will abide by the ruling, but that it will wait for details of the ruling to issue the verdict in writing. By Tuesday night, that had not occurred.
The military said that without official notification of the verdict, it was implementing the curfew as planned, at 1 a.m. today. Military spokesman Col. Ahmed Mohammed Ali said in a statement that the military so far had not been "notified officially of any court ruling."
The state news agency also cited an unidentified high-ranking Interior Ministry official saying the ministry has not received the court's ruling. It said security forces have started deploying to secure the Egyptian street.
It was not clear how binding the ruling is. The court said its decision came in response to a lawsuit questioning legality of the state of emergency, and the court rejected the suit, saying it has already expired. A senior judge, Abdel-Maguid al-Mouqanan, told the state news agency that the ruling doesn't obligate the government to put an end to the state of emergency.
First Published: November 13, 2013, 4:24 a.m.
