Cops cleared of child torture
2007-09-07 07:21
Cairo - A government-appointed panel of forensic experts has cleared Egyptian police of wrongdoing in the case of a boy who died shortly after being released from police custody, say security sources.
The mother of the 13-year-old boy, Saeeda Surour, dismissed the findings as "lies" and the head of an anti-torture organisation said police had beaten and electrocuted the boy.
Surour said: "They say the ministry of interior is not at fault. Then who killed my son?"
Mohamed Mamdouh Abdel Rahman, 13, died in the Nile Delta town of Mansoura in August three days after emerging from police custody with signs that he had suffered torture. Police suspected him and his brother of stealing packets of tea.
The opposition Muslim Brotherhood subsequently released a video on the internet of a comatose Abdel Rahman with a fluid shunt attached to his lung and with what appeared to be burns on his lower back and testicles.
Magda Adly, director of the El Nadim Centre for the Psychological Treatment and Rehabilitation of the Victims of Violence, confirmed the authenticity of the video.
Authorities subsequently exhumed and examined the body to check for signs of torture, and the panel told the general prosecutor in Dakahlia on Wednesday that police were not responsible for the death of the boy, said the security sources.
It was reported that the panel found that the boy died due to "a sharp drop in blood pressure and respiratory functions", and that the child suffered from toxic shock due to inadequate medical treatment.
Boy went into coma
But Adly said Abdel Rahman's family reported his back had electrical burns and burns possibly produced by a hot object. She added that his brother, detained at the same time, said police had used a heating coil to burn Abdel Rahman's back.
Adly added: "The boy was beaten, electrocuted. When he screamed and went into convulsions... the officer kicked him in the chest, and that appears to have damaged his lungs."
She said Abdel Rahman had received "primitive" medical treatment while in police custody and had the shunt attached to his lung to drain fluid. He was then returned to the police station, where the wound got infected.
Abdel Rahman subsequently went into a coma, which Adly said could have been caused by blood poisoning or head trauma from beating. Authorities then moved him to hospital for forensic exams, but the child died while there and was buried without his family being notified.
Abdel Rahman's case was the latest in a series in which Egyptian police allegedly abused people in custody. A group of policemen was under investigation in the case of a man they said jumped off a balcony in Cairo in August, and another group in a remote western oasis allegedly poured flammable liquids on the bodies of suspects and set fire to them.
International and local rights groups said torture was systematic in Egyptian jails and police stations. Past victims had reported receiving electric shocks and beatings.
The government said it opposed torture and prosecuted policemen against whom it had evidence that they tortured.
In one 2006 incident, covertly caught on videotape and circulated on the internet, police sodomised a bus driver with a stick in a Cairo police station.