CAIRO: Mottled with bruises and abrasions Reda Abdeen has been in a state of severe fatigue after being assaulted by Warraq Police Station officers who raided his house and took him to the police station when he refused to collaborate with them. Abdeen says that the police wanted him report to them on movements of drug traffickers in Ard El-Liwa. He also claims that his aging father was not spared the assault either. In a complaint he filed to the Prosecutor General and the Interior Minister, however, the father said that a police squad "stormed the house and attacked us. They tied up the hands of my son and dragged him along the floor. They tied up his hands and feet and threw him into a microbus trunk. The father confirmed that the reason for the assault was his son's refusal to work with them as an informer. "They have even trumped up a drug dealing accusation against him. They planted hashish and 31 rolls of cannabis on him because he refused to work with them, he claimed. He said the officers had assaulted his son and had wounded him in the face and foot, pointing to the fact that his son had sustained a fracture in the right arm and the ribs after they had hung him against a door inside the police station to force him to agree. "Despite my injuries, the father told Daily News Egypt, "I decided to file the complaint immediately when they detained him inside the police station. He submitted a petition to the Interior Minister to have Abdeen released after more than three weeks despite his poor health which necessitates urgent hospitalization. The Interior Ministry's failure to respond prompted Abdeen's father to file another complaint accusing the Interior Minister of colluding with Al-Warraq Police Station officers to coerce him into working with them. The victim's mother told Daily News Egypt that Reda was their only support in their old age. She recalled the fact that the officers had detained him for one week before without charge again in an attempt to make him an informer before releasing him. Wounds on his body, she says, were proof that he was subjected to torture while in detention. The mother appealed to the Interior Minister to release her son and start an investigation into Al-Warraq Police Station officers on charges of torture and unlawful detention.
