Egypt court adjourns Hamas 'terrorist' case to June

An Egyptian court on Saturday postponed to 6 June delivering its ruling in a lawsuit calling for designating Palestinian faction Hamas as a “terrorist” group.

Cairo’s Urgent Matters Court postponed its verdict, which was slated for Saturday, until 6 June without providing justification, a judicial source told Anadolu Agency.

In February, the same court designated Hamas as a “terrorist” group over claims that it had carried out attacks in Egypt via tunnels linking the Sinai Peninsula to the blockaded Gaza Strip.

The following month, an Egyptian court set 28 March for the first hearing of the appeal filed the State Lawsuits Authority, the Egyptian government’s legal arm, against designating Hamas as a “terrorist organization.”

A different court has since postponed ruling on the case twice.

Cairo-Hamas relations have soured since the Egyptian military ousted Islamist President Mohamed Morsi in July of 2013, with Egypt’s government tightening its already-firm grip on the Rafah border crossing – Gaza’s only outlet to the outside world not under Israeli control.

The Egyptian media blames Hamas, an ideological offshoot of Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood group, for a series of deadly attacks on security forces carried out since Morsi’s ouster in mid-2013.