As the Interior Ministry is forced to investigate allegations of torture in police stations, it continues to insist such incidents are isolated, reports Karim El-Khashab Two of the most widely publicised cases of police brutality to have emerged in recent months -- those of 12-year-old Mohamed Mamdouh in the village of Shaha, and of Nasser Mohamed in the village of Telbanah, both of whom died after being detained by the police -- took dramatic turns this week. A second tripartite medical investigation team, consisting of officials from the health, interior and justice ministries, issued its report into the case of Mamdouh. Only the conclusion, which states that the boy's death was not caused by a severe chest infection, as the first investigation had claimed, was made public. The second investigation now claims the cause of Mamdouh's death to be a result of a botched surgical operation, compounded by negligence on the part of police officers in the station where Mamdouh was held. That the report found no evidence of torture or abuse has prompted Mamdouh's family and lawyer to accuse the Interior Ministry of covering up the circumstances that led to the boy's death. The prosecutor-general's office has summoned the head of the Mansoura hospital where the boy was treated, as well as the doctor responsible for administering treatment and the officer in charge of the prison where he was held, for questioning. They are likely to be accused of negligence rather than of torture or murder. The full report, which has not been released to the family's lawyers, insists there is no evidence of torture despite the testimony of five other inmates who say they witnessed Mamdouh being hit around the head by police officers who then left him without medical attention for four days before he was sent to the hospital. "They didn't find any evidence of torture for the simple reason they did not look for any," says Hamdi El-Baz, the family's lawyer. As far as he knows, El-Baz continued, the report makes no mention of burns on Mohamed's back and the blows to his head, nor is there any explanation as to why he had to undergo an operation in the first place when he had no prior history of chest infections. El-Baz is in the process of issuing a new complaint to the prosecutor-general's office accusing the police of unlawfully burying the boy and deliberately delaying any enquiry until the signs of torture on the body were less obvious. Meanwhile, the dead boy's family has set up camp in front of the prosecutor's office demanding that someone must take responsibility for his death. The coroner's report into the death of Mohamed, who died in the same police station days before the 12-year-old boy, was far less equivocal. Mohamed, who was detained while police were searching for his brother, died as a result of injuries caused when a police officer struck him on the head with a wooden baton and he was then kicked repeatedly while on the floor. Two officers have been formerly charged, along with three lower ranking policemen. The head of the police station is also accused of taking LE6,000 from the victim. Mohamed Shabanah, Mohamed's lawyer, said that additional charges of negligence and other offences against officers in the precinct would be filed soon. He added that despite a slow start to the investigation the evidence, both medical and from eye witnesses, was so overwhelming the authorities could not brush it beneath the carpet. Addressing the difference with which the two investigations were treated, Shabanah points out that unlike Mamdouh's case people in Telbanah placed enormous pressure on the Interior Ministry by protesting during Mohamed's funeral. Assistant Minister of Interior Lieutenant Samir Salam says cases are treated on an individual basis and that investigations are conducted independent of the ministry. Indirectly refuting a recent report by the Egyptian Organisation for Human Rights into the prevalence of torture in police stations he added that statements made by human rights organisations into the issue were misinformed. Such reassurances are unlikely to quell public concern in the light of the growing number of well-publicised incidents of torture. During a recent meeting at the Press Syndicate human rights activists joined to create a united front against such abuses. Government moves to ban the Organisation for Legal Aid in Human Rights met objections from 42 other rights organisations that immediately filed a counter suit -- one example of the growing resolve of the NGO to address an issue that is growing daily in momentum. Sooner, they hope, rather than later, the government will have to tackle the issue of torture on a systemic and not individual basis.
