CAIRO - The name Torah might sound unfamiliar to foreigners, including those living in this country. But in the minds of Egyptians, the name conjures up one of the most notorious detention centres in a country long known as a police state. Located on the southern outskirts of the Egyptian capital, the sprawling Torah Prison is as infamous as Abu Ghraib in Baghdad and the X-Ray Camp at the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay. Over the past years, Torah Prison, known for its high security, has been home for the majority of political detainees, mainly from the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's largest opposition force that was officially banned since 1954 until last February. In a sharp and highly ironic reversal of fortunes, while most such political detainees were released in the weeks that followed Mubarak's toppling, senior officials who served under him are now behind bars in Torah Farm, a prison recently annexed to the bigger Torah Prison. Torah Farm is where people jailed pending further inquiries are usually kept. Around 50 former officials from the Mubarak regime are being detained in Torah Farm on charges ranging from amassing ill-gotten gains to involvement in a deadly crackdown on protesters during the revolt against Mubarak last January. The latest newcomers to the jailing complex are Alaa and Gamal, the two sons of Mubarak. Last week, the Prosecutor-General ordered the brothers to be jailed for 15 days, pending further inquiries into charges of ordering police to fire at demonstrators. The list of detainees in Torah Farm includes ex-Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif; ex-Interior Minister Habib Al-Adli; ex-Chairman of the consultative Shura Council Safwat al-Sherif; ex-Speaker of the People's Assembly (Lower House of Parliament); ex Housing Minister Mohamed Ibrahim Suliman; ex-Tourism Minister Zuhair Garranah; and the secretary in Mubarak's party responsible for organisational affairs, business tycoon-cum-politician Ahmed Ezz. Torah Prison, first built in the early 20th century, is actually made up of seven prisons, each encircled with a high wall and security towers manned round the clock. But unlike other places in the prison, inmates in Torah Farm are allowed to wear tracksuits and aren't exposed to military-style haircuts. This detention centre made local headlines in late 2008 when Hesham Talaat Moustafa, a real-estate tycoon and an ex-member of Mubarak's party, was jailed there on charges of ordering the slaying of Lebanese singer Suzanne Tamim in Dubai. The prison has recently gained more notoriety with more and more members of Mubarak's toppled regime being banged up there. Playing on a famous TV commercial about an upmarket residential compound constructed by the company co-owned by Hesham Talaat Moustafa (now detained on charges of murder), some Egyptians are now advertising Torah Prison as ‘a world-class jail built on Egyptian land'. Others wags are calling it Torah Porto after a swanky Egyptian resort, a pun inspired by the fact that two former housing ministers, who advocated the construction of seaside resorts for the elite when they were in office, are among the inmates in the penitential Porto.
