CAIRO, May 11, 2005 (IslamOnline.net) – Dozens of alleged “Islamic militants” are shipped and ferried blindfolded to Egypt where they are tortured, held incommunicado and even disappear, an international rights organization reported Wednesday, May 11.

“Over the past ten years, Egypt’s campaign to eradicate armed militant Islamists moved from the streets of its large cities and the countryside of Upper Egypt to countries around the world where some of those militants had taken refuge,” the US-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on its report, “Black Hole: The Fate of Islamists Rendered to Egypt.”

It said that Egyptian police have sought the return of alleged “militants” from Pakistan, Albania, Bosnia, Sweden, Iran, Jordan, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom and the United States.

“Egypt’s terrible record of torturing prisoners means that no country should forcibly send a suspect there,” Joe Stork, HRW deputy Middle East director, said in the press release, a copy of which was sent to IOL.

These renditions, dating back to the mid-1990s, occurred with no due process protections, such as an extradition hearing before a judicial authority, according to the report.

“Torture in Egypt is practiced routinely, and systemically when it comes to suspected Islamist militants,” the report said.

“In these circumstances, such returns are forbidden under international law, which prohibits the return of individuals to countries where they are at significant risk of torture.”

It said that the Egyptian government is reluctant to acknowledge their whereabouts or even the fact that they were in its custody.

A file photo of an Egyptian policeman beating a demonstrator.

The 53-page report identifies 63 individuals, mostly alleged “Islamist militants” of Egyptian origin, whom other states rendered to Egypt since 1994.

“Mohammad Al-Zawahri, an alleged ex-militant and a brother of senior Al-Qaeda operative Ayman Al-Zawahri, was kidnapped while in the United Arab Emirates on business in early 1999 and returned to Egypt,” the report said.

It said that Zawahri was presumed dead until word of his detention was leaked to the Arab press in early 2004.

“For more than five years, the Egyptian government refused to answer a single question about Zawahri’s whereabouts, and allowed his family to believe that he had died rather than disclose his continued incarceration,” the report said.

His brother Hussain was also apprehended in 1999 by Malaysian security forces and transferred later to Egypt.

“The Egyptian government refused to acknowledge the rendition or inform his family of his whereabouts until he was released, without charge and without any explanation, six months later. According to family members, he is under orders from Egyptian security not to speak about his ordeal,” the report said.

The report further said that the United States has played an operational role or facilitated the rendition of wanted individuals to Egypt.

It said a number of such cases have happened since 2001 during US President George W. Bush’s administration.

On December 18, 2001, the report said, Ahmad Agiza and Mohammad El-Zari, two Egyptian asylum seekers who had been living for several years without incident in Sweden, were apprehended by Swedish security forces and within hours transferred to Egypt on a US-government-leased jet.

Stork said that the Bush administration knows full well that Egypt tortures people in custody.

Egypt’s “promises not to torture a given suspect are not worth the paper they’re written on,” Stork said.

“This fig leaf doesn’t hide US complicity in the terrible abuses that await suspects sent to Egypt.”

The US Department of State’s latest human rights report on Egypt, published in February, stated that “torture and abuse of detainees by police, security personnel, and prison guards remained common and persistent,” and detailed numerous cases.

Prominent former CIA official Robert Baer had criticized in TV and press interviews the torture practices in Arab countries, including Egypt.

“If you want a serious interrogation, you send a prisoner to Jordan. If you want them to be tortured, you send them to Syria. If you want someone to disappear -- never to see them again -- you send them to Egypt,” he said, according to the press release.

The report further said that torture, already forbidden under Egyptian law and the international human rights treaties Egypt has signed, has been a widespread and persistent phenomenon in the country.

“Methods of torture include beatings with fists, feet, leather straps, sticks, and electric cables; suspension in contorted and painful positions accompanied by beatings; the application of electric shocks; and sexual intimidation and violence,” it said.

The document said suspected “Islamist militants” have borne the brunt of such horrendous practices.

“Deaths in custody as a result of torture and ill-treatment have once again shown a disturbing rise over the past several years,” in Egypt, it said.

On April 10, the Egyptian National Council for Human Rights gave credence in its first annual report to widespread torture by Egyptian police and security forces.

The 358-page report hit out at the shocking practices used by police personnel to extract information from suspects under the notorious emergency law.

Under this law, up to thousands of alleged members of Islamist groups have been kept in jail since the 1990s, even after they completed their sentences, according to the Egyptian report.

“The UN Committee Against Torture, the UN Human Rights Committee, and the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture have frequently expressed grave concern at the persistent and credible reports of torture and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment at the hands of Egyptian law enforcement personnel, and in particular the security services,” the HRW report said.

The latest incident is the death in Egyptian custody of the cousin of an Egyptian wanted in connection with Khan El-Khalili bombing.

Mohammad Suleiman Youssef, 40, was the cousin of Ashraf Said Youssef, identified by the Interior Ministry as the fugitive who recruited the bomber who blew himself up in the Islamic district.

A police source told Reuters last month that police sent the man’s body back to his village north of Cairo for burial.

• Click to Read the HRW Report in Full