Michaela Singer reports:
On Aug. 19, 2007, 42-year-old Muhammad Gomaa Hassan Dahshoury was taken by a police patrol from his used items shop in Kamin, Fayoum. One month later his battered body was lying in a hospital morgue.
Seven months further on, and it has not been removed, nor will it be, say his family, until there is a transparent and just investigation into the cause of his death.
“Muhammad was protecting a 14-year-old boy who had run into his shop to hide,” Ibrahim Dahshoury, the deceased’s brother, told Daily News Egypt. “When a man came in after the boy and began to attack him, Muhammad intervened. It turned out the man was a plainclothes police officer. He threatened Muhammad before returning to his shop with three other men and took him to the Fayoum police station. There, they beat him to a pulp before throwing him out in the street.
“We found him in the street unable to speak and only partially conscious. There was blood seeping from his mouth. We realized he needed emergency hospital treatment so we took him to the local government hospital,” he continued.
After entering the government hospital, the Dahshoury family made a report at the in-house police office, as is procedure for all patients suffering from injuries with unnatural causes. However, when the Dahshoury family stated that his injuries where the result of the time spent in police custody, the hospital refused to treat him, they alleged.
“They let him in to the hospital only when we agreed to sign a report which said that he had sustained these horrific injuries when he fell down some stairs. We had no choice — it was either that or let him die.”
Dahshoury’s family alleges that the officer they believe is responsible for Muhammad’s death, Osama Gomaa, repeatedly offered them bribes to keep quiet about the torture.
