A Cairo court on Tuesday acquitted a state security officer of charges of torturing to death a man he had arrested in 2003, a judicial source said.
The court must publish within 45 days its reason for acquitting Captain Ashraf Safwat whose alleged involvement in the killing came to light earlier this year through Egypt’s activist Internet blogger community.
Back on Sept. 16, 2003, Safwat summoned Mohammed Abdel Qader and his brother to a Cairo police station. Abdel Qader died five days later and an autopsy said torture by electric shock combined with a weak heart was the cause of death.
In January, Abdel Qader’s case appeared on a blog, featuring excerpts from the forensic report and gruesome autopsy pictures.
“There is evidence of the application of high temperature to the right and left breast and the penis resembling the effects of electrocution with an electric wire,” read an excerpt. “He was subject to those injuries hours before his death.”
It took seven months for Safwat to answer the subpoena in the case, and when he did it was with his own autopsy report claiming the burns came from a defibrillator used to revive the victim after a heart attack.

The family had dropped the case, under pressures from State Security who detained Muhammad’s brother Sameh without charges to blackmail the victim’s family. But, after relentless campaiging by the Association for Human Rights Legal Aid, supported by the Kefaya bloggers, the family showed up in court yesterday and admitted they had dropped the case under intimidation.

The Human Rights Coalition for Monitoring the Trial of State Security Officer
Press Release
Cairo on February 5th 2007
The Head Forensic Doctor Testifies in the Trial of State Security Officer
The Victim’s Family Did Not Show up
The Coalition for Monitoring the Trial, formed by the undersigned, attended and observed the trial session held on 3/2/2007 at the Cairo Criminal Court in the Case No 4681 for the year 2004, of State Security Investigation officer Captain Ashraf Mostafa Hussein Safwat, charged with torturing victim late Mr. Mohammed Abdel Qader El Sayed.
The Coalition regretted the Court’s refusal to register the presence of its members in the minutes. The Court did not allow cameras of news channels into the Court Hall, in breach of the principle of the publicity of court hearings and the right of people to obtain knowledge.
The Court heard the testimony of the head forensic doctor and debated with the witness, the Defense followed suit. The Court decided to defer the case to the 5th of May 2007 session to hear the Defense argumentation. Meanwhile, members of the victim’s family did not attend the session.
The Coalition emphasizes that the individual right to life, freedom and security in person, and the right to physical integrity would not be complete unless there were definite guarantees that these rights would not be derogated from if the individual were assaulted, and that when the case is such, society would not leave him/her and his/her family to suffer from the repercussions of this assault unaided and would not exhibit any interest in his/her fate.
The Coalition declares that it adheres tightly to the right to fair trial, where all the guarantees and rights of both parties, whether the accused officer or the victim’s family, would be ensured. The Coalition also indicates that it will continue to closely observe the court proceedings until the ruling is passed, then would issue a report addressed to public opinion.
The Coalition for Monitoring the Trial has been formed upon the request of the Association of Legal Assistance for Human Rights, which had adopted the case since 2003. The Association cast doubts over the practices of State Security Investigation Service, where pressure was brought to bear on relatives of suspects to force them to cancel powers of attorney they had issued for lawyers of the Association and to waiver their civil right. Furthermore, the victim’s brother was arrested as per the Emergency Law.
Organizations making up the Coalition:
The Egyptian Association for the Elimination of Torture
The Arab Network for Human Rights Information
The Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights
The National Center for Law and Human Rights
The Egyptian Organization for Human Rights
The Committee for the Defense of Freedoms in the Egyptian Bar Association
Earth Center for Human Rights
Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies
Al Nadim Center for Psychological Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence
Hisham Mubarak Law Center
Mr. Mahmoud Qandil, Attorney At Law

Here is a statement from a coalition of rights watchdogs:

NGOs Coalition to Oversee the Trial of a State Security Officer
31/1/2007
A number of human rights organizations and human rights advocates announced the formation of a coalition to oversee the criminal trial on the case of murder by electric shock of Muhammad Abdul-Qader Alsayed, in the case number 4681 of 2004, criminal, Hadaeq Al-Qobba, registered under number 533 of 2005, criminal, West Cairo. The case is considered by the twenty first district in the New Cairo city (Al-Tagamo Al-Khames), East Cairo. The case is postponed to Saturday, February 3rd, 2007. The accused is Ashraf Mostafa Hussein Safwat, captain in the State Security Investigation Body.
The facts of the case start with the arrest of the brothers Muhammad Abdul-Qader Al-Sayed and Sameh Abdul-Qader Al-Sayed and their detention in Hadaeq Al-Qobba police station on December 16th, 2003. Muhammad Abdul-Qader Al-Sayed died three days later after his arrest as a result of the torture he has been subjected to. On April 1st, 2006, the prosecution general referred the accused officer to the criminal court.
What raised the concern of the organizations and prompted them to form a coalition to monitor and oversea the trial is what they received from the defense panel instructed by the victim’s family to the effect that this panel was surprised in the session held on February 4th, 2006, when the defense of the accused submitted to the court a statement establishing that the family of the victim waived the civil action and cancelled all the proxies to the said defense panel. It’s noting worthy that the family of the victim consists of his wife and three minor girls, and his brother is still under detention by virtue of the Emergency Law. What made the organizations interested in forming such coalition is that it in 20 years since 1986 when 44 officers were tried, this is the first time where a State Security officer is tried in a case of torture.
The monitoring coalition, while observing the application of the national and international standards of fair trial, stresses its concern regarding this waiver to have been made as a result of severe pressures exercised on the family of the victim to force it to waive the case, especially that the brother of the said victim is still under arrest under the control of the accused officer.
Members to the Coalition
– Egyptian Anti-Torture Society
– The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information
– Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights
– National Center for Law and Human Rights
– Egyptian Organization for Human Rights
– Defense for Freedoms Committee, the Egyptian Bar Association
– Land Center for Human Rights
– Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies
– Al-Nadim Center for Psychological Rehabilitation and Treatment of Victims of Violence
– Hisham Mubarak Law Center
– Mr. Mahmoud Qandeel – Lawyer

And here’s a statement I received few minutes ago (in Arabic) from AHRLA (whose lawyers have been spearheading the campaign to prosecute State Security Captain Ashraf Safwat) calling on journalists and rights activists to show up in court for solidarity:

فى تمام الساعة التاسعة من صباح يوم السبت الموافق 3 فبراير 2007 تعقد جلسة محاكمة الضابط / أشرف مصطفى حسين صفوت “بجهاز مباحث أمن الدولة” المتهم بتعذيب المواطن / محمد عبد القادر السيد حتى الموت فى القضية رقم 4681 لسنة 2004 جنايات حدائق القبة المقيدة برقم 533 لسنة 2005 جنايات غرب القاهرة التى تنظرها الدائرة الحادية والعشرون والتى تعقد بمدينة القاهرة الجديدة (التجمع الخامس) شرق القاهرة.
وتعود وقائع القضية إلى عام 2003 حيث قام الضابط المتهم بإلقاء القبض على الاخوين / محمد عبد القادر السيد وسامح عبد القادر السيد وإحتجزهما بقسم الحدائق وقام بتعذيبهما. وقد لفظ الأول أنفاسه متأثراً بتعذيبه بالصعق بالكهرباء. واستمر التحقيق فى وقائع تلك القضية لمدة 3 سنوات حتى أُحيلت لمحكمة الجنايات. وهناك شكوك قوية فى ممارسة أجهزة الأمن لضغوطها على أسرة الإبن القتيل حتى يتنازلوا عن الدعوى.
وأستجابة لدعوة جمعية المساعدة التى وجهتها الى منظمات المجتمع المدنى فى مصر قام عدد من تلك المنظمات بتشكيل ائتلاف حقوقى لمراقبة المحاكمة يضم كلا من (الجمعية المصرية لمناهضة التعذيب, الشبكة العربية لمعلومات حقوق الإنسان, المبادرة المصرية للحقوق الشخصية, المركز الوطنى للقانون وحقوق الإنسان, المنظمة المصرية لحقوق الإنسان, لجنة الدفاع عن الحريات بنقابة المحامين المصريين, مركز الأرض لحقوق الإنسان, مركز القاهرة لدراسات حقوق الإنسان.
مركز النديم للتأهيل النفسى لضحايا العنف, مركز هشام مبارك للقانون, الأستاذ / محمود قنديل محام), ومن المنتظر أن يحتشد يوم المحاكمة ممثلون لعدة منظمات حقوقية ووسائل إعلام .
وتدعو الجمعية كافة المهتمين بمواجهة ظاهرة التعذيب فى مصر افرادا ومنظمات الى الحضور صباح يوم الجلسة للاعلان عن الرفض والادانة لجريمة التعذيب المنظم الذى تمارسه أجهزة الدولة ضد المواطنيين ، كما تدعوهم للتوقيع على المناشدة التى تطالب بعدم افلات ضابط مباحث امن الدولة المسئول عن تعذيب وقتل المواطن محمد عبد القادر من المحاكمة والافراج عن شقيقه سامح عبد القادر (المعتقل حاليا) وعلى الموقع الإلكترونى للجمعية: www.ahrla.org

لمزيد من التفاصيل الإتصال بجمعية المساعدة القانونية لحقوق الإنسان على الأرقام التالية:
025770901 / 025789069
0103860605 / 0182361121

For more background information about the case, make sure your read Paul Schemm’s AFP report. And you can click on the banner below to read Kefaya’s exclusive report and photos:

Your solidarity is needed. Please try to show up in court on Saturday.

Egypt bloggers reveal new torture case
by Paul Schemm
CAIRO, Feb 1, 2007 (AFP) – Egypt’s politically active blogger community has brought to light another torture case against the regime’s security services amid a rising tide of outrage over police brutality.
On Saturday, lawyers from the Association for Human Rights and Legal Aid (AHRLA) will go to court in a last-ditch effort to keep alive the case against a state security officer accused of torturing to death a man he arrested three and a half years ago.
The case against Captain Ashraf Safwat is gaining new attention following the decision by Egypt’s activist blogger community to post the details online in the wake of several other cases of police brutality in recent weeks.
“The most significant aspect of the case is this is the first state security officer to truly be put in front of a criminal court,” said Mohsen Bahnasi, a member of AHRLA’s board, referring to the country’s feared plainclothes security service.
Mohammed Abdel Qader and his brother were summoned to a Cairo police station on September 16, 2003 by Safwat. Abdel Qader died five days later and an autopsy gave torture by electric shock combined with a weak heart as the cause of death.
More than three years later, the case continues to drag on, hampered by slow prosecutors, uncooperative security services and now the family’s decision to drop the case and disappear.
In the past few months, however, torture cases have gained new prominence in Egypt as bloggers have posted videos, photos and accounts of brutality in police stations, prompting renewed investigations.
On January 20, Abdel Qader’s case appeared on a blog, featuring excerpts from the forensic report and gruesome autopsy pictures showing the mangled corpse of a heavily bearded man.
“There is evidence of the application of high temperature to the right and left breast and the penis resembling the effects of electrocution with an electric wire,” read an excerpt. “He was subject to those injuries hours before his death.”
“The pictures have done something, because they are visual — it is a shock,” said Aida Seif al-Dawla, a veteran anti-torture activist who credits the bloggers for raising public awareness on the pervasive use of torture by security services.
Hossam el-Hamalawy, on whose Arabawy blog the pictures appear, said it comes as no surprise bloggers should take interest in such cases.
“The bloggers themselves were victims of torture during the past years,” he said, referring to the case of Mohammed al-Sharqawi who was allegedly sodomised after being arrested. “We are receiving so many videos now.”
Bloggers came to public attention during the political ferment surrounding elections in 2005 and then most recently when they posted the grim video of bus driver Imad al-Kabir being sodomised in a police station in 2006 — the first of many such examples of police brutality to be publicised.
Interior Minister Interior Habib al-Adly last week lashed out at the bloggers, condemning the “intentionally unpatriotic campaign striking a national service that seeks stability in the country.”
The campaign strikes at the heart of official assertions that torture is not widespread and limited to individual cases.
“The outcry has encouraged people to come forward in person and take the government at its word that it takes torture seriously and prosecutes it whenever possible,” said Elijah Zarwan of Human Rights Watch.
Proving a torture case in Egypt, he added, is very difficult due to a narrow definition of torture by authorities and lengthy incommunicado detentions during which the marks often fade.
It took seven months for Safwat to answer the subpoena in the current case, and when he did it was with his own autopsy report claiming the burns came from a defibrillator used to revive the victim after a heart attack, indicating he was familiar with the case prior to the trial.
A special committee of experts then took two tries to conduct a new autopsy based on the pictures and available documents which finally concluded that there was torture, opening the way for the trial to begin in June 2006.
The repeated delays, leaking of information to defendants and allowing the suspected officers to remain free during the trial are typical of attempts to bring torture cases against police, said AHRLA president Tariq al-Khater.
“The prosecutors in Egypt are in collusion with the police,” he said.
In November, the officer’s lawyer suddenly produced a paper signed by Abdel Qader’s family withdrawing Khater’s power of attorney and dropping the civil case for damages against the officer.
Khater is convinced that state security pressured the family, which has since disappeared, by threatening their still imprisoned other son, Sameh.
With his case against Safwat threatening to fall to pieces, Khater has taken the unusual step of challenging the family’s decision on the behalf Abdel Qader’s three daughters on the grounds it is against their interests.
On Saturday, the criminal court will decide whether the case proceeds.

The photos of the autopsy report are here. I should warn you they are really sickening, but they have to be published so that the criminals will not escape justice.

On 16 September 2003, State Security Captain Ashraf Mustafa Hussein Safwat summoned two brothers Muhammad Abdel Kader el-Sayyed, 31, and his 27-year-old brother Sameh for interrogation in Hadayek el-Qobba Police Station, based on an illegal detention order. After a five-day torture odyssey on the hands of Captain Ashraf, citizen Muhammad died, while his brother Sameh has remained in detention since then.

The family of the victim refused to receive his body, and sought legal help from Association for Human Rights Legal Aid (AHRLA), whose lawyers notified the Prosecutor of the incident. The forensic report, after examining the body of Muhammad Abdel Qader, proved that he was subject to injuries that involved “red bruises and hematomas (blood collections) in the lower lip, left nipple, right wrist, right forearm, chest, left arm, left thigh and left leg (..) in addition to severe hemorrhagic injuries in the head and abdomen which are contusive injuries resulting from collision with solid body or bodies. These are recent injuries that coincide with the date of death.”

The forensic report also confirmed the presence of “congestion and evidence of use of high temperature to the right and left breast and the penis resembling the effect of electrocution with an electric wire. He was subject to those injuries hours before this death.”

While working on the case, the AHRLA lawyers faced great difficulties that included denying them access to the complete file of the case—in violation of criminal law. The Interior Ministry refused to comply with the prosecutor’s orders to arrest and summon the accused officer, Ashraf Hussein. Finally on 4 November 2006, the victim’s family surprised the lawyers by dropping the case in court and cancelling their power of attorney, after they were blackmailed by the security: We will release your living son, if you give up the rights of the deceased one, the police told the family.

The executioner is about to escape justice once more, so that he can torture and kill more Egyptian citizens inside the morgues and torture chambers of State Security Police. It is further evidence to how Mubarak’s regime nourishes torture systematically, and covers up for the criminals engaged in it.

The torture victim, citizen Muhammad Abdel Qader had rights. His three daughters also have rights. Their last chance of achieving justice could be on the 3rd of February, where the Hadayek el-Qobba Prosecution Office for Family Affairs (in charge of financial custody over Muhammad’s minor daughters) will reopen the investigation into the case once again.

Kefaya obtained previously unpublished copies of the Forensic Medical Authorities autopsy report that prove citizen Muhammad Abdel Qader died because of the torture he received on the hands of State Security Captain Ashraf Mustafa Hussein Safwat. As we publish them today, we call on all civil society organizations to extend their solidarity to the victim’s family, and show up on 3 February, 2007 in court.

The officer detained 31-year-old Muhammad and his brother Sameh, 27, on 16 September 2003, with no court orders or charges. Five days later, their family was phoned and requested to come and receive Muhammad’s dead body which carried torture marks.

Though the prosecutor took a decision to investigate the officer after three years of the incident, the family was forced to drop the case in court, after the officer blackmailed them using Sameh, who’s still in detention without trial, as a bargaining chip.