Doubts and suspicions surround the death of an Egyptian Citizen inside

One of the State Security Headquarters in Nasr City as A result of torture

             With high concern, the Association for Human Rights Legal Aid (AHRLA) received the news of the engineer Akram Abd El Aziz Sabri death; he was a member of the “Engineers Against Guarding” Committee, his death came as a direct result of torture, which took place inside one of the detention headquarters that are run by the state security at Nasr City. It is worth mentioning that the late engineer (42 years old) was arrested last May with 55 other members of the legally banned Muslim Brotherhood Islamism group. The last incident occurred as part of the investigations related to the law case number 462 for the year 2004 that was classified as a “ High State Security case”.      

      According to a number of sources, the body of the victim currently lies at the Manial university hospital.

             It should be noted that the death of the mentioned victim and the member of the Muslim brotherhood as the only case of it’s kind. It was preceded by the death of a number of people who have been allegedly subjected to torture at the hands of state security officials. Among such incidents is the case of another citizen, Mosad Said

 Kotob who died as a result of torture inside the main state security location in Giza on the 3rd of November 2003. Another case is that of the death of Mohamed El Roby at the state security headquarters in the governate of Fayoum on the 13th of September 2003,as well as that of Mohamed Abd El Kader who also died as a result of torture at the hands of state security officials at their headquarters in Hadeyek El Kobba, Cairo.

             Such continuous case of torture-related death heightens the suspicions of the AHRLA concerning the reasons behind these deaths as well as the circumstances that led to it. This is highly significant given the fact that such headquarters are in fact illegal places of detention that are used by the state security officials to carry out interrogations, and that they are neither monitored nor supervised by the public prosecution.

             The Association for Human Rights Legal Aid calls upon the judiciary and upon Egypt’s system of justice, and especially urges the office of the Egyptian Attorney General, to start an immediate investigation into the circumstances surrounding the death of the late Mr. Akram Sabri as well as starting an investigation in the reasons behind the deaths of all the mentioned victims of torture.