Egypt: Secret Detention and Torture of an 18 Year-Old Student Charged With “Terrorism”

محمد سعد زقيلح

On 20 December 2016, Alkarama sent an urgent appeal to the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) concerning the case of Mohamed Saad Zekillah, a young student who was arrested on 9 November 2016 by the Homeland Security Forces. He was secretly detained for 17 days, during which he was repeatedly tortured. He reappeared on 23 November 2016, when he was brought before the Public Prosecutor of Alexandria and charged with “belonging to a terrorist group”. He is currently detained at the Bab Sharq Police Station, in Alexandria, and only allowed occasional and short family visits.

Mohamed Saad Awad Zekillah was arrested on 9 November 2016 at 2.30 am in Kafr El Dawwar, not far from Alexandria, while he and his relatives were sleeping. Members of the Homeland Security Forces, wearing uniforms and carrying weapons, broke into his house, arrested him without showing any warrant and refused to provide the family with any reason for the arrest. They then left for an unknown location. Zekillah was secretly detained at an unknown location between 9 and 23 November 2016. It was later revealed that he was secretly held at the Homeland Security headquarters in Alexandria, during which he was repeatedly ill-treated and tortured by Homeland Security officers. He was brutally assaulted, forced to lie on the floor face down with his wrists chained in the back and was electrocuted on different parts of his body.

He then reappeared on 23 November 2016 – after 17 days of incommunicado detention – at the Bab Sharq Police Station of Alexandria, where he is currently detained. On the same day, he was brought before the Public Prosecutor of Alexandria, without the assistance of a lawyer, and was charged under the 2015 Anti-Terrorism Law. Although the Public Prosecutor failed to bring evidence in relation to the alleged charges, he decided to extend Zekillah’s detention at the Bab Sharq Police Station of Alexandria, a non-official detention facility, and thus deliberately put him back outside the protection of the law. Finally, the registration of his arrest was deliberately manipulated so as to justify the 17 days of secret detention he underwent.

Alkarama is extremely concerned over the serious acts of torture that were inflicted to Zekilla but also over the serious charges brought against him. We are further concerned about the fact that the victim was not timely informed of the reasons for his arrest and the charges brought against him. He was denied the right to communicate with his family, to benefit from legal counsel and official records were fabricated in order to cover his secret detention. Such facts, which constitute multiple violations of basic fundamental rights, are at clear odds with Egypt’s international legal obligations.

In light of the above, Alkarama solicited the urgent intervention of the WGAD with the Egyptian authorities to ask them to protect his physical and mental health, to put him under the protection of the law and to authorise longer family visits. Alkarama further maintained that in the absence of credible evidence, Zekillah should be released and investigations should be launched to ensure that no confessions obtained under torture be used against him during trial.

For more information or an interview, please contact media@alkarama.org (Tel: +41 22 734 1008).