- EGYPT
- June 10, 2016
- 7 minutes read
Junta Regime Pursuing Extra-Judicial Killing Policy Under Pretext of Fighting Terrorism
On June 7, the Egyptian Interior Ministry said in a statement that its forces successfully killed three citizens while attempting to arrest them in an apartment at Ras Al-Barr city in Damietta the previous day (June 6). In the same statement, the IM claimed the executed three had fired first at its forces.
The IM statement mentioned that the dead were: Walid Hussein (27 years old), Mahmoud Talaat Ahmed (28) and Mohamed Abdel-Hadi Mahmoud (40). It also claimed that the dead were terrorist elements who belong to a cell of more than 10 ‘terrorists’ who had carried out many terrorist operations including bombings and assassinations of security personnel. The statement also mentioned names of what it claimed were other terror cell members, some of whom were arrested inside the apartment during the same raid in which the above three were shot dead.
The IM also showed a video-clip of three people it claimed were arrested in that raid. In the video, the three make clear confessions about the activity of a terror cell the junta’s security apparatus says they belonged to.
The Arab Organization for Human Rights (AOHR) stresses that the security apparatus’s account of the incident raises many suspicions that cannot be ignored. In contrast, it seemed that the incident came as part of a long series of executions outside the framework of the law, in a deliberate policy pursued by the Egyptian regime since June 2015.
For one thing, the persons shown in the IM’s footage confessing seemed to carry obvious torture marks, and appeared to be repeating specific phrases that condemn them without any logical justification that drives them to incriminate themselves voluntarily with crimes punishable by death.
In any event, filming confessions and showing them in this way is a violation of the law and the constitution, and has nothing to do with investigations into the incident, which should be carried out by a neutral and independent body.
Moreover, the pictures published by the IM showed three dead men it claimed died as a result of exchange of fire with security forces indicated many contradictions. One of the bodies appeared a photo with a firearm (pistol) on the left side.
Then, the same corpse appeared in another photo with another firearm (automatic rifle) on its right hand.
Furthermore, the positions of the corpses are inconsistent with the accounts of a clash or resistance. One corpse was wholly on a bed. Also, from the photos, it seemed the two other men were killed by gunshots to the head from behind. Also, all three corpses hold weapons in a way that suggest the firearms were simply placed in their hands.
The deaths of these three men brings to 60 the number of people killed in similar circumstances – in which the IM claims they were killed in clashes or while carrying out terrorist operations (without offering proof of the truth of its claims or opening a transparent and impartial investigation into incidents) – since the military coup in July 2013
AOHR has documented operations by the junta’s security services in which they killed 73 people outside the framework of the law in the past months. There is varied and conclusive evidence that shows the security forces’ accounts of how they died were utter lies.
AOHR affirms that Egyptian security authorities refuse to cooperate with any party to clarify the whole picture, and refuse to open any serious investigations into those incidents. AOHR wrote to relevant authorities in Egypt, and demanded evidence and open transparent and impartial investigations into similar killings. However, the IM and its security apparatuses never responded.
AOHR urges the international community to stop the silence with which it faces all the Egyptian regime’s crimes. This silence amounts to strong support, aiding and abetting the murderous military regime to persist in its crimes and atrocities unpunished.
AOHR stresses the need for intervention by the United Nations Secretary-General to put pressure on the ruling regime in Egypt to open serious and expeditious investigations into all these horrific incidents, and to ensure the perpetrators are held accountable.
The Arab Organization for Human Rights in Britain
