CAIRO: The family of a suspect in a misdemeanor case filed a complaint to the prosecutor general accusing an officer at Meet Ghamr Police Station of torturing him last week to force him to change his words. Karim Adel was beaten and forced to stay in a water container for 48 hours by the head of the investigation department at the station, Abdel Ghafar Al-Ashry, during interrogations to force him to change his accounts, according to his brother Mohamed. Mohamed said his brother is a suspect in “a self-defense case” without elaboration. He said the police officer wanted Karim to change his words to prove he was guilty. The prosecutor general ordered the investigation of Karim's case, but no action has been taken up to press time, according to Mohamed "When we visited him last Wednesday he was in a horrible state after two days in custody. He couldn't stand up and told us that he was tortured," said Mohamed, also a human rights activist. "We decided to file a complaint to Meet Ghamr prosecution but they told us to come later so we filed the complaint directly to the prosecutor general," he added. Adel claimed that Al-Ashry has a reputation of manipulating the results of investigations and that he threatened his family more than once of executing Karim. "I don't know if I am the target being an activist or is it something personal between him and Karim," Adel said. An eyewitness was detained after giving his account in the case but was released shortly after. According to Adel, he heard the families of other detainees at the police station planning to burn down the station. "Even after the revolution, Meet Ghamr's police station still witnesses the same notorious malpractices we saw before," Adel said. Adel said he is discussing with a number of human rights groups a "fair trial" initiative to monitor the performance of police officers and the prosecution.
