A new MoI reshuffle today saw the promotion of a notorious torturer. Major General Hussein Mohamed Sami Bilal is a veteran officer of the State Security Police. He served as the State Security’s Alexandria division officer, responsible for monitoring Salafi activities in 2011. In that role, he was involved in the torture and death of Sayed Bilal (no family relation), a 30-year-old Salafi man who died in custody in January 2011, shortly before the outbreak of the revolution.
Hussein Bilal reportedly left the country sometime after the revolution to work with security forces in the UAE, returning after the 2013 military coup. He then resumed his security career, rising through the ranks of the rebranded Homeland Security apparatus. Bilal held top security posts in Ismailia and Alexandria governorates before being appointed to run Cairo’s Homeland Security branch last week.