Arrested on the road

On 5 February 2016, 34-year-old Abou Al Amoury was driving on Al Beheira-Alexandria road when he was stopped at a checkpoint by policemen. According to witnesses to the scene, they asked him to show his identification papers and then asked him to step out of the car. He was subsequently arrested and forced into a police car that left for an unknown location. Five days later and still unaware of his fate, his relatives filed a complaint at Ad Dilengat police station, Abou’s city of residence, but to no avail.

On his side, Islam Ibrahim El Tohamy Ibrahim was on a taxi when he was arrested near Baltim police station, in the outskirts of this city. Several individuals from the General Investigations Department and the Homeland Security stopped the taxi and searched him. Then, they confiscated Islam’s phone and ID, arrested him and left for an unknown location. Unaware of the 29-year-old’s whereabouts, his relatives solicited several official bodies and were told by the Ministry of Interior that investigations had be opened but they did not hear from authorities after that.

Similarly, 38-year-old Mohammed El Safty was walking on the streets of Nubaria (El Beheira Governorate) to meet friends when a car stopped in front of him. According to witnesses, members of the Homeland Security stepped out of it and asked for Mohammed’s identification papers. Then, they forced him into the car that drove away for an unknown location. Again, his relatives sent several telegrams to the authorities on 8 February, but to no avail. Both Islam and Mohammed relatives had contacted Alkarama at the time regarding their respective disappearances, prompting the organisation to send urgent appeals to the United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (WGEID).

Electrocuted and beaten up by officers

It is only at the end of February that Abou, Islam and Mohammed’s families eventually heard from them. In fact, a newspaper published photos of the three men, along with three others, standing in front of a table on which numerous weapons were disposed. The article explained that these six men had been indicted after confessing that they were members of a terrorist cell that had carried out attacks against the authorities. It is only at this moment that their relatives were informed that the three men were detained in Istiqbal prison.

Eventually authorised to visit them in March 2016, their relatives learned that the three men had been repeatedly tortured while in detention inside police stations and Central Security Forces compounds, a practice that remains systematic in Egypt, in particular against minors such as Asser Mohammed Zahr Aldeen Abdelwarth. Electrocuted and beaten up by officers on several occasions, the three men eventually signed confessions without having the possibility of reading them before. Then, blindfolded and without the assistance of a lawyer, they were brought before a State Security prosecutor who accused them of being members of a terrorist cell that killed a policeman.

“The risk now is to have Abou, Islam and Mohammed’s confessions used in court against them. Given the accusations brought against them, they could consequently be sentenced to death and the authorities have already executed several individuals unjustly accused of terrorism in 2015, such as in the Arab Sharkas case, says Thomas-John Guinard, Alkarama Legal Officer for the Nile. Even if they testify that these confessions were obtained under torture, there are few chances that their reports are taken into account, because of the lack of independence of both the Egyptian judiciary and public prosecution.”

In order to prevent further acts of torture against the three men and to guarantee that the confessions they have made would not be used in court against them, Alkarama solicited the United Nations Special Rapporteur against Torture (UNSRT) to intervene with the Egyptian authorities. Alkarama calls again upon the latter to end the widespread and systematic practice of torture in the country; to effectively prosecute the authors of such crimes and to punish them accordingly while providing effective remedy to the victims and their relatives.

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