The Human Rights Association for the Assistance of Prisoners HRAAP Campaign

Hand in Hand…Egypt without Torture

Cairo: 15/6/2004

The Administrative Justice Court postpones the lawsuit filed by HRAAP against the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Interior and the Libyan Embassy in Cairo to determine the status of 21 Egyptian citizens missed in Libya to the session of June 29, 2004

On June 15, 2004, the Administrative Justice Court postpones the lawsuit filed by HRAAP against the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Interior and the Libyan Embassy in Cairo to determine the status of 21 Egyptian citizens missed in Libya to the session of June 29, 2004, after they have been swindled on the allegation of getting a contract to work in Italy through the Libyan territories.

It is worth mentioning that the lawyers of the association have submitted a declaration to Libyan Embassy in Cairo and claimed the Ministry of Foreign affairs to declare procedures and the exerted efforts to determine the destiny of the missing people.

HRAAP issued a lawsuit in the State Council in 25/1/2004, and a session was specified in 16/3/2004, then it was postponed to the session of 30/3/2004, and obliging the ministry of interior to provide a certificate reveals the movement of the missing citizens as well as their passports that were with them, and a resident Egyptian in Libya submitted them to Libyan authority and then they were delivered to the Egyptian authorities to acknowledge the court and re-announcing the Libyan Embassy officially.

The incidents date back to the period between 16, 23/10/2001, when 24 Egyptian citizens, all of them from Zenara village-Tala- Minofeya, have gone to Libya lawfully through Al-Salloum, on the Egyptian-Libyan borders. This happened after one of the Egyptian residents in Libya had deluded them in claiming that he can send them to Italy through Libya in order to get a job there. Consequently, each one of them has paid 15000 pounds to get them visas to Italy and the fees of traveling by sea. Then, the same person took the passports alleging that he will sign them from the Embassy of Italy and will return it to them when they are going to travel by sea, then he prepared places of accommodation for them in Libya.    

According to what they have agreed on, a ship was ready to take the victims (the missed) to Italy, since then, there is no any contact between them and their families in Cairo.

On the other hand, the disappeared victims' families appealed to many officials and non-officials authorities attempting to know the destiny of their disappeared relatives. These officials are the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, The Egyptian Ministry of Interior, the Libyan Embassy in Cairo, the Egyptian

Embassy in Libya and the heads and managers of the Egyptian Journals. However, all these contacts resulted in nothing. That is what urged some of these families to travel to Libya more than once. Then they have met the Attorney-General of Libya, who sent them to the chief of the Criminal Investigations promising them to search for them within one week; afterwards he refused to meet them again. Later on, the victims’ families knew from their relatives in Libya that the Libyan coastal forces arrested them and returned them to Libya where they have been detained in political prisons in the Green Court, because the ship they boarded belongs to Libyan Navy and none can approach or even ask about them in that prison. In addition, it was rumored that they have been hanged unlawfully.    

On the other hand, in 10/12/2002, HRAAP appealed to:

       1-            The Presidency of the Republic

       2-            The Minster of the foreign Affairs/ Ahmed Maher

       3-            His excellency /Mohamed Mohamed Mubarak (Ambassador of Libya in Egypt)

       4-            His excellency/ Amr Mousa (secretary-general of the Arab League)

       5-            Mr. Farouk Eissa (secretary-general of the Arab Lawyers Union)

       6-            Mr. Sameh Ashour (Head of the Arab Lawyers Union)

In 6/1/2003, HRAAP received a letter from the Libyan embassy indicating that:

            (The representative of the Libyan affairs in Egypt told the authorities in Libya about those missing Egyptians, and the authorities replied him that they are not registered and nothing is known about them.

In 20/10/2003, HRAAP received another letter, contradicting the first one as follows:

           (The concerned authorities in Libya asserted that the Egyptians are not imprisoned in any of the Libyan prisons. Moreover, 23 passports, belong to the missing Egyptians, were found except for one passport that is not included in the list of the missed, named / Wageeh Al said Alshenawy. One of the Egyptians residents in Libya called /Said Al Maghawry handed the 23 passports of the missed to the Egyptian embassy in Trabuls)

            In the course of events, the victims families became sure that their missed were swindled by /Yasser Abd Rahman Ismail and his father / Abd Rahman Ismail Alsobhey, after arresting them and sending them for a trial in Egypt, issue no. 14168/13684/2002 (Al Nozha felonies), session 29/1/2003. The criminals were sentenced to three years with paying the expenses of the lawyer.

            This is because they deluded many Egyptian citizens claiming that they can send them to Italy through Libya, in addition they exposed their lives to danger.

            In spite of all these events and the long term of missing, the families of the victims had nothing to do but to resort to the legal authorities to make the Ministry of the Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Interiors in Cairo to determine their destiny.

            Attached a list of the names of the missed for which the Lawsuit is presented.

The Human Rights Association for the Assistance of Prisoners