RIGHTS-EGYPT: Trial Of Alleged Militants Seen As Smoke Screen

By Cam McGrath Reprint | | Print |

Cam McGrath

Dec 10 2001 (IPS) - Human rights groups say the recent trial by Egypt of 94 alleged Muslim militants is a political move aimed at appeasing Washington while settling scores with the government’s opponents.

A military court in the desert outside Cairo heard, for the first time recently, details of the charges brought against the 94 defendants, seven of whom are being tried in absentia. The new charges included a plot to assassinate leading political, military and religious officials, as well as “apostate” entertainers, intellectuals and businessmen.

Police arrested most of the defendants in May and kept them in detention under Emergency Law, in force since President Anwar Sadat was assassinated in 1981. More arrests followed the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States and President Hosni Mubarak’s sudden decision in mid- October to refer all defendants to a military court aroused suspicion.

Human rights groups believe the move is aimed at using the U.S.- led war on terrorism as a smoke screen for the government’s own agenda of silencing political opposition.

Prosecutors say the 94 defendants were part of a terror organisation called Al-Waad (the Promise), which sought to topple the government and assassinate dozens of high-profile Egyptians. No terrorism plots were announced when the majority of the defendants were arrested in May, but by mid-October implicit suggestions that the group could even have links to Osama bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda organisation began to surface.

This seems all too convenient, says Hafez Abu Sa’ada, secretary- general of the Egyptian Organisation for Human Rights (EOHR) and the lawyer of one of the defendants. Like other human rights advocates, he believes the government has manipulated the charges and evidence to suit its purposes.

“This is not an organisation seeking to change power or assassinate people. It was looking to help its Muslim brothers, to raise money for Palestine and Chechnya,” he told Inter Press Service.

Abu Sa’ada, who attended initial interrogations in May, said the case at that time centered on claims that the defendants were unlawfully collecting money and donations to support Muslims suffering under the Palestinian Intifada (uprising) and Russia’s war in Chechnya.

Prosecutors claimed these funds were intended to purchase weapons that would be smuggled to militant Palestinian Islamist groups and Chechen rebels.

The first batch of defendants arrested in May included Sheikh Nashaat Ibrahim– a mosque preacher in Nasr City who allegedly led the group – a Palestinian who holds a Yemeni passport, three men from Daghestan and three Egyptians who hold dual nationalities.

An additional eleven suspects were arrested after September 11, and alarm bells rang when it was discovered that two of the defendants had received pilot training in the U.S.

Defendant Seif Eddin, 40, said he worked as a gate agent for a commuter airline and completed just two hours of flight training in New Jersey before returning to Egypt in 1996. Hussein Sami, 23, testified that he completed a flight training course in Texas in order to work as a commercial pilot for EgyptAir. Both denied any connection to terrorism organisations. Prosecutors, however, argued during the military trial’s first hearing on November 18 that the two men were part of a secret organisation bent on militancy and assassinations.

Lawyers for the defendants say September 11 events have given the Egyptian government a green light to round up political dissidents. Since the attacks, more than 300 people have joined the thousands of detainees held under various charges, some for over two years, and appear destined for military tribunals.

Egyptian citizens angered by the spectacle of police raiding mosques and carting off worshippers were perhaps appeased when state-run magazine Al-Mussawar claimed on October 10 that police were apprehending suspects linked to Al-Qaeda who were planning suicide attacks using commercial planes on Cairo. The Ministry of Interior later admitted that it had no evidence to support such a claim.

“The whole world is talking about terrorism, so this is a good opportunity [for the government] to try the suspects without any world condemnation,” explained Abu Sa’ada.

Amid allegations of torture, coerced confessions and nightmarish detention cells, have come concerns about evidence tampering. Defense lawyers told the court that several paragraphs were edited out of copies of the defendants’ interrogation transcripts. The expurgated lines were those that demonstrated the defendants were pursuing humanitarian causes, not militancy, they asserted.

Evidence that the 94 defendants were part of an armed militant group planning to sabotage military installments and assassinate dozens of famous Egyptian personalities including President Hosni Mubarak is slim.

Prosecutors have presented the court with various religious books, engineering manuals, videotapes of fighting in Afghanistan and an anti-aircraft shell, but no anti-aircraft gun to fire it. The judge refused to admit an air rifle and baseball bat, which he said were hardly the weapons of hardcore militants.

Amnesty International suspects the trial is an attempt to silence political opposition from elements supporting Egypt’s largest and most outspoken Islamic fundamentalist group.

“If, as we believe, the detainees are being held solely on the grounds of their alleged affiliation with the Muslim Brotherhood – an organisation that neither advocates nor condones violence – we consider them to be prisoners of conscience and call for their immediate and unconditional release,” it said.

The Muslim Brotherhood, founded in 1928, has had a history of violence, but in recent years has turned to politics as a vehicle for change. In October/November 2000 parliamentary elections, candidates with suspected ties to the Brotherhood managed to land an unprecedented 12 seats. In April and May 2001, the government rounded up hundreds of Brotherhood candidates and supporters in the run-up to elections for the Shura Council, the upper house of Egypt’s bicameral parliament.

Amnesty International has condemned the trial of 94 defendants by a military tribunal, arguing that it violates Article 14 (5) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to which Egypt is a signatory.

The article forbids governments from trying civilians in a military court, whose verdicts cannot be appealed. Egypt has ignored the petition and the fate of the 94 defendants is now in the hands of a government-appointed military judge.