As we celebrate May Day, I was wondering whatever happened to SS Brigadier General Ahmad el-Azzazi, who headed the dissolved agency’s infamous “Trade Unions Bureau”. Why isn’t he on trial?

One of the photos I found on the Nasr City SS DVDs belonged to Brigadier General Ahmad el-Azzazi.

Azzazi was in charge of the “Trade Unions Bureau” in the dissolved State Security Police, which was involved in monitoring, arrest and torture of activists within labor unions and professional syndicates. Azzazi is a familiar face for many of us. He personally supervised the suppression of pro-democracy and Palestine solidarity demonstrations in downtown Cairo, attended by left wing activists involved in the labor movement and syndicates.

Azzazi, moreover, took part in Black Wednesday, 25 May 2005, when National Democratic Party thugs sexually attacked women reporters and activists in broad day light, under the protection of and in coordination with the police.

Azzazi’s name was also mentioned in a corruption case related to the education ministry. He was among police officers who received financial rewards from then Education Minister Ahmad Zaki Badr, allocated from the education ministry’s budget, after they helped put down protests by the ministry’s civil servants on 16 January 2011, roughly one week before the outbreak of the revolution.

I personally saw Azzazi only once, during a pro-democracy protest in front of the Lawyers Syndicate, in 2005. He was then standing together with SS Colonel Sherif el-Qamati, of the Counter-Communism Bureau.

Interestingly, there are two more members of the Azzazi family who are part of the dissolved SS, according to the SS family tree compiled by Moftasa: Lt. Colonel Khaled el-Azzazi and Colonel Hosni el-Azzazi. But no information is available yet on them.

So, where is Brigadier Ahmad el-Azzazi now? Is he being investigated? Is he in prison? Or is he part of the musical chairs game the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces is playing.