The Human Rights Association for the Assistance

of prisoners Campaign for Combating Torture

Hand in Hand …Egypt without Torture

 Cairo: 13/4/2004
 

Torture is a crime.
The Human Rights Association for the Assistance of prisoners HRAAP welcomes the decision of the Attorney General to refer five officers to the Criminal Court, accusing them of torturing four citizens from Toukh village to coerce them to confess to a murder they did not commit.

 The Attorney General decided to refer five officers, in the Security Office of Al-Kalyobeya, to the Criminal Court, accusing them of torturing four citizens from Toukh village to coerce them to confess to a murder they did not commit. Consequently, although they are innocents, they were sentenced to three years in prison. The referral decision included a primary school teacher and a driver "the true criminals".

             The suspects list includes Hussein Hosny Al-Sayed Al-Shaf'y aged 41 "a primary school teacher", Sa'ed Abdel-Azim Amin aged 39 "a driver", Medhat Hasan Al-Mesailhy Mohamed Afify, aged 41 "lieutenant in the Criminal Inspection Office in Asyout, Osama Hasan Mohamed Abdel-Halim Mansour, aged 40 "major and the chief of Vice Squad in Al-Kalyobeya", Ahmed Kamal Abdel-Aaty, aged 29 "captain in enforcement office in Al-Kalyobeya", Sameh Mahmoud Al-Sayed Mohamed Metwally, aged 29 "captain and chief of Inspection Office in Al-Kosayrat district, Souhag governorate and Hamed Ahmed Mahmoud Farid, aged 29 "captain in Inspection Office of Al-Shalatin police station in Red Sea governorate".

             The referral decision, prepared by the prosecution office of northern Banha, indicated that the first and second suspects killed Khaled Abdel-Tawwab Younes deliberately with premeditation in June 2000 in the district of Toukh in Al-Kalyobeya governorate, where they premeditated to kill him while the first one prepared a white weapon "knife" and waited for him in a place in which he passes. The first suspect stabbed him in his neck and different parts in his body with the intention of killing him, consequently he was injured heavily then led him to death, and meanwhile the second suspect was helping his partner and stealing the motorcycle of the victim as revenge, where the victim guided the police to arrest him having drugs. In addition, the prosecution office accused the first suspect of having a knife to frighten people without any personal necessity or legal justification for this. The case papers indicated that the remaining suspects, from the third till the seventh in their capacity as governmental employees then, tortured Mohmoud Ragab Ibrahim mahmoud Darwish and Saber Hasan Rezk in person and ordered their assistants to do so to force them to confess to killing Khaled Abdel-Tawwab Younes deliberately with premeditation and stealing his motorcycle, where they tied their hands and stripped him of their clothes and threatened to harm them as well as their families, Therefore they confessed. The investigations of prosecution declared that the third suspect Medhat Hasan Al-Mesailhy Mohamed arrested Shehata Rezk Al-Sayed Shehata and detained him without a legal warranty and in different circumstances to the legally recognized, and tortured him in person by kicking him and making him fall, and put his foot on his neck, in addition he took part with the fourth suspect Osama Hasan Mohamed Abdel-Halim Mansour and the fifth one Ahmed Kamal Abdel-Aaty to arrest Nadia Soliman Al-Sayed and detained her without a legal warranty and tortured her by kicking her with their feet in different parts on her body.

             The investigations indicated that the last suspect Hamed Ahmed Mahmoud Farid arrested Rawya Ibrahim Mahmoud Darwish and Hasan Rezk Al-Sayed Shehata without a legal warranty and ordered some of his assistants to bind the former and kicking her by their feet.

             Papers indicated that the suspects beginning from the third to the sixth tortured Bayoumy Shehata Rezk Al-Sayed depending on their positions and ordered some detectives to bind his hand to the window of the detention and electrifying his body. The brigade Mustafa Selim "criminal inspector in General Security Office" asserted that the reports of the suspects from the third to the seventh are not correct, that why the Attorney General Maher Abdel-Wahed referred the all suspects to criminal court.

            The Attorney General ordered to send a copy of the case papers to Cassation court that will consider the appeal of the suspects who were proved to be innocents after spending 3 years in prison, where he ordered to stop implementing the criminal court ruling as a result of the confession of the true suspect in last October.

            In this respect it is worth mentioning that HRAAP submitted a complaint to the Attorney General Maher Abdel-Wahed in 4/12/2003 to open investigations in the incident of torturing four citizens from Toukh and forcing them to confess a murder they did not commit as well as the incident of torturing the young actress Habeba and forcing her to confess to killing her husband, the complaint was registered in No. 12207 on 11/12/2003 in Appeal Prosecution in Cairo to take the necessary procedures, then it was registered in 767/2003 complaints, Attorney Appeal and was sent to the prosecution office of southern Giza in No. 6197 in 13/12/2003 then to Banha and it was signed to be reconsidered and taking the necessary procedures.  

The human rights association for the assistance of prisoners