There has been further public reaction against the confiscation of documents and diaries of Abdel Ghaffar Mohamed, the judge (now deceased) who oversaw the historic 1981 Jihad Organization case. Security forces broke into Mohamed's home and took his son. His family notified the public prosecutor, Abdel Meguid Mahmoud, and demanded to know the whereabouts of the son, Mohamed, who was taken to an unknown destination. Officials at the interior ministry refused to declare whether the son was detained in one of its prisons or not. The family have made a request to the Judges Club to intervene and ask the security authorities to release their son. The club's president, Ahmed el-Zend, was approached to find out why the former judge's house had been broken into. Abdel Ghaffar Mohamed was a former president of the Court of Appeal, and one of the most outstanding personalities in the Egyptian judiciary during the past 50 years. Mohamed's family said that el-Zend had informed them that he was not aware of the reasons for the detention of their son or the confiscation of the documents, but had promised to find out and to intervene with the security authorities. Mohamed's family said that the incident- which took place shortly after the judge's death - was a large insult, by the security apparatus, against the Egyptian judicial system. They said that Mohamed had served his country with honor, acting as judge in the biggest case witnessed in Egyptian modern history: the Al-Jihad organization case, which revolved around the assassination of former president Anwar el-Sadat, as well as investigations surrounding a robbery from the safe of former president Gamal Abdel Nasser. Mohamed's family had expected the deceased judge to be honored after his death, but instead he and his whole family had been humiliated. Mohamed's family said that they had sent an urgent memo to the parliamentary speaker, Ahmed Fathy Sorour, in his capacity as head of the legislative authority, and another memo to the interior minister, Habib el-Adly, asking for the release of their son. The family's lawyer, Montasir el-Zayyat, pleaded with President Mubarak and el-Adly to release their son, who suffers from several psychological illness and needs medication and treatment. El-Zayyat said he fears the son may commit suicide since he already suffers from deep depression, which increased in severity after the death of his father. Translated from the Arabic Edition.
