Egypt’s judges have come a long way from spearheading dissent to being the counterrevolution’s aggressive hounds.
Tag: judges
SS Brigadier Muhammad Mahmoud Borghosh عميد أمن دولة محمد محمود برغش
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| From SS Officers |
Among the sets I found on the Nasr City SS DVDs was one of Brigadier General Muhammad Mahmoud Borghosh.
The officer’s name was mentioned in the infamous case filed by NDP lawyer Samir el-Sheshtawi against Ad-Dustour editor and dissident journalist Ibrahim Eissa. The latter was sentenced to prison over bogus charges, but was “pardoned” by Mubarak in a PR move.
Judge Mahmoud Hamza, one of the reformist Judges who took part the “Judges Intifada” accused Borghosh of taking part in the brutal assault against him on 23 April 2006, as SS and the Central Security Forces moved in to suspend the sit in staged by activists in solidarity with the reformist Judges in downtown Cairo.
Brigadier General Borghosh is no stranger to human rights activists. Lawyer Gamal Eid wrote me:
محمد برغش.. أحد ضباط أمن الدولة سيئ السمعة. كان ضمن المسئولين عن ملف المحامين والقضاء، وبدءا من عام 2003 ، أصبح مسئول ملف القضاء فقط وكان أعلى وسيط امن الدولة في التعامل مع القضاة. وخلال محاكمة أيمن نور كان دوره أهم من عادل عبدالسلام جمعة رجل الحكومة في القضاء. وإذا استطعت الوصول لصور من محاكمات أيمن نور التي حضرتها كمراقب للهيومان رايتس ووتش كان دائما ما يقف على المنصة خلف القضاة الثلاثة فضلا عن دوره في توجيه محاكمة البسطويسي ومكي التي .فبركها النظام السابق
Eid describes Borgosh as
…one of the State Security Police officers with the worst reputations. He was in charge of the lawyers’ and judges’ file… and was the most senior liaison between State Security Police and the Judges. During Ayman Nour’s trial, his [Borghosh’s] role was more important than the pro-government presiding judge, Adel Abdel Salam Goma’a. If you can get hold of any of the photos of Ayman Nour’s trial sessions, which I attended as a monitor for Human Rights Watch, you’ll find him [Borghosh] always standing behind the judges’ bench. Needless to say, he had a role in directing the trial of [Judges Hisham] el-Bastaweesi and Mahmoud Mekki.
Why isn’t Brigadier General Borghosh on trial now? Will he be part of the newly established National Security Sector?