• Torture
  • November 18, 2010
  • 3 minutes read

Amnesty Demands Egypt Protect Detainee from Possible Murder

Amnesty Demands Egypt Protect Detainee from Possible Murder

Rights group, Amnesty International, has called for a full investigation into claims that a young man was tortured to death at a police station in Egypt.

The family of 20-year-old Ahmed Shaaban has accused police in Alexandria of beating their son to death after they received an anonymous phone call informing them that their missing son was being detained and tortured at Sidi Gaber police station; the same place as Khaled Saeed – also a victim – was detained earlier this year.

Shaaban’s disfigured body was later found floating in a canal in Alexandria, where family members say that police dumped him after torturing and killing him.
As usual, the police have denied any wrongdoing on their part alleging that Shaaban committed suicide. Nevertheless, the family asserts that his body had clear signs of torture.

Witnesses told the family that Shaaban and his friend, Ahmed Farag Labib, were stopped at a police checkpoint and arrested when they refused to be searched and both had been missing since.

Malcolm Smart, Amnesty International’s director for the Middle East and North Africa, stressed that the disturbing incidents of enforced disappearances and deaths in custody, as well as possible unlawful killing by police, must be immediately and fully investigated by an independent body.

Amnesty also called on Egyptian authorities to guarantee the safety of Ahmed Farag Labib, who is still in police custody noting that his evidence will be crucial to investigations. Smart added that authorities must ensure that Labib, detained since November 7, is protected against possible torture or other mistreatment, and is not to be intimidated by those detaining him at Alexandria’s Sidi Gaber police station. Until now he has had no access to his family or lawyers.

Amnesty insisted that Egyptian authorities independently investigate, without delay, the continued torturing to death at the police station in Alexandria, and guarantee the safety of Labib and any detainee being held in custody there, so that there will be no more cases like Khaled Saeed or Ahmed Labib.

The Egyptian Interior Ministry has refused to comment on the case and state press has not covered the story. This response is now the norm as a result of the regime’s evidently increasing effort to monopolize the media to avoid being exposed.