Allegations of people dying while in police custody have been springing up all over Egypt. Do they have political ramifications, asks Karim El-Khashab Over the past few weeks, some half a dozen stories have appeared in the press of people dying while in police custody, the latest case involving a 12- year-old boy accused of theft in the Delta town of Mansoura. While the spate of deaths allegedly at the hands of the security services has alarmed the public and raised questions about an upsurge in police brutality, there have also been rumours that the stories have been leaked to the press before a forthcoming cabinet reshuffle, possibly with the aim of discrediting the minister of the interior. The spate of recent deaths started in the westernmost part of Egypt in Marsa Matrouh near the Libyan border, when a man suspected of stealing telephone wire was arrested along with dozens of others. The police later released most of the suspects but kept the man in custody, allegedly attempting to "force" a confession from him. According to the man's lawyer, Mohamed Saber, in an interview with Al-Ahram Weekly, the police drenched the man in petrol in an attempt to scare him into confessing. He was then accidentally set on fire, with police officers attempting to douse the flames. After remaining in police custody for three days, the man was finally sent to hospital where he died of his injuries. However, the most alarming cases both took place in Mansoura, where two prisoners have died, allegedly while in police custody. The first case is that of Nasr Ahmed Abdallah, who was arrested in the nearby town of Telbana when police came to arrest his brother, but took Nasr when the brother could not be found. In comments made to the Weekly, Nasr's wife said that the police had stormed the house and harassed her and her children, adding that they had "hurled insults at us and assaulted Nasr's mother". Nasr's lawyer, Mohamed Shabana, said that Nasr had been beaten by police at his home and then taken to the police station in Mansoura, already heavily bruised. "He was taken in order to put pressure on his brother to give himself up," Shabana said, "but there was never an arrest warrant for Nasr." The following day, family members were asked to come to the police station to collect Nasr's body after he had apparently died from his injuries. During the funeral, members of the public protested against the death, and many of them were arrested by riot police. A few days later even more disturbing allegations of police brutality emerged, with the death while in police custody of 12-year-old Mohamed Mahmoud Abdel-Rahman, who had been arrested on suspicion of stealing in the town of Shaha near Mansoura. According to his mother, the boy had got into an argument with police while in custody because he had refused to confess. The following day, she was informed that her son had been transferred to hospital, where he was undergoing an operation. "They would not let me see him, or explain what the operation was about," she said, adding that she suspected he had been tortured. When the boy was left at a bus station the following day, local people informed his mother and took him to hospital. According to witnesses, he had suffered "severe burns on his body from electric shocks and cuts". "The boy explained exactly what had happened to him before he passed away," said Ali Abdel-Rahman, a relative, in an interview with the Weekly, adding that the boy had said that he had been electrocuted with wires and had cigarettes flicked at him, as well as beaten. The boy died last Saturday from his injuries and the family intends to file a complaint with the authorities. A spokesman for the Interior Ministry refused to comment on the cases, saying only that they will be investigated and that the ministry prosecutes all those involved in such acts. However, according to Mohamed Zaraa, head of the Arab Organisation for Criminal Correction, the cases are only the latest in a series. "We have had more than a thousand cases of torture pending against police officers since 1988," Zaraa said, pointing out that little is done unless someone dies. What was new about the present cases, he added, was the level of public concern, which "will only add to people's anger at and mistrust of the security forces, to the point where people have become worried about even stepping into a police station to make a complaint." Much of the anger, Zaraa, said, was directed at the minister of the interior, Habib El-Adli, and Shehab Montasser, an independent MP from Daqahleya where some of the alleged events took place, said that public concern may make it easier to force the minister to answer questions before parliament. Montasser said that though this was still unlikely as the minister "has always been off limits, and I doubt these instances are going to change anything," the amount of public and media interest in the allegations meant that things could change. "We remember when Youssef Wali, the former minister of agriculture, was also untouchable, but then a campaign sprang up in the media against him and he was removed," Montasser said. "In my opinion, it depends on the amount of public outcry, especially because the people who were killed were not political prisoners but ordinary citizens." Police officers who spoke to the Weekly on condition of anonymity said that they doubted the cases would have a direct political effect, since the problem lay not at the top but at the bottom of the police hierarchy and in the precincts themselves. "I don't think these cases were leaked to the press, or any such thing," one officer said, remarking that with so much media attention such things were bound to surface. Whether the cases will have political ramifications is at present anyone's guess. However, what is clear is that public concern about the Interior Ministry has rarely been higher. In an interview with the Weekly, Nasr's brother summed up the feelings of many towards the police. "If I am being attacked by the police, who am I supposed to run to for help," he asked.
