Lawyer for dead student’s family tells of being ‘tortured’ in jail
EGYPT: A lawyer working on the case of the murdered Italian student Giulio Regeni said that he had been tortured by Egyptian guards and held in solitary confinement after being arrested at Cairo airport while trying to board a plane.
Ibrahim Metwaly, 53, was travelling to Geneva to address a UN working group about Regeni’s killing and state kidnappings in Egypt when he vanished 10 days ago.
He was found in detention in Cairo, where he was being held on charges of ‘‘communicating with foreign entities to harm state security’’ and forming a group ‘‘against the law and the constitution’’.
Metwaly spoke of his treatment at a hearing yesterday to extend his detention by 15 days, according to the Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms (ECRF) - the human rights law firm he works for that is representing the Regeni family in Egypt.
‘‘He told our lawyers that he was subjected to torture when he was in state security during his disappearance.
‘‘They stripped off all his clothes and electrocuted him,’’ the commission’s executive-director, Mohamed Lotfy, told The Times.
Metwaly is being detained in the Scorpion, the maximumsecurity unit of Tora prison.
‘‘He is being held in solitary confinement in a dark room without electricity and with water on the floor that is full of garbage,’’ Lotfy said.
After yesterday’s hearing the commission’s offices were raided by security forces and the Egyptian investment authority.
The authorities prepared a report saying that they found books on human rights and files on cases of disappearances on the premises, said Lotfy.
The authorities accused the group of acting politically, in breach of its founding contract, and also threatened to close it down, he added.
‘‘We expect them to try to shut us down again next week,’’ Lotfy said.
The ECRF was given power of attorney by the family of Regeni, who was kidnapped on January 25, 2016, and tortured until he died.
The Italian authorities, rights groups and the family believe that Regeni, a University of Cambridge PhD student who was researching independent trade unions, was probably killed in a botched police interrogation. The Egyptian authorities strongly deny the accusations and maintain that Regeni was kidnapped by a criminal gang.
The ECRF’s lawyers have pressed for Regeni’s case files to be released, but repeated requests to Egypt’s public prosecutor have gone unanswered.
The ECRF’s offices have been raided on several occasions.
Interior ministry officials have declined to comment on Metwaly’s arrest.
They were not available to comment on the claims that Metwaly had been tortured while in detention.
The authorities have repeatedly denied that the security forces use violence against detainees and maintain that their prisons meet international standards.