Military Justice: Beating, Dragging, Disregard for forensics, Indecent Assaults and Alteration of Charges

Against Violence and TortureJoint Statements

On Oct 25, 2011

The night of bloody Sunday, October 9, 2011, Military Police and Central Security arrested 29 people, mostly Christians who were transferred to military prosecution. The following day Binyamin Raafat Farag, a minor by virtue of law, and an adult by virtue of military justice was also arrested. And therefore he and two other minors Hanah Lateef Faheem and Abanob Naseef Zaki, like others appeared before military trials.

As it had been accustomed, the process of arrest was associated with beatings, insults and humiliation, it was conveyed through some detainees that they were taken by the military police into the Maspiro building, where they went up several floors and were subjected to severe beating and kicking by military police and civilians, the bruises and wounds were noticeable on the defendants the following day when they were brought to military prosecution.

Among the defendants, Mr. Atef Mohamed Mohamed Kasir,a former navel captain, 67 years old, diabetic, suffers from hypertension and a sore inflammation in his leg nerves extending from the knees till his feet.

Amid them as well Amthol Mahmoud Abdel-Fattah, who had been inflicted with mental delay since childhood and who was not subject to prosecution for this reason. The prosecutor said that there has been a decision to release him, but he did not arrive home until the writing of this report.

The day following their arrest, the injured were shown to hospitals and then transferred to military prosecution, where their lawyers attended with them and demanded they would be exposed to forensic medicine, but the prosecutor in charge denounced their request, saying they don’t recognize forensic medicine in military trials, and that they don’t refer the accused to forensic medicine “because he is accused”. So the lawyers requested a medical examination of the injured as victims and not as defendants, a request the prosecution did not pay attention to.

On October 10, 2011, the defendants were charged with the following:

1 –Assaulting military police, which resulted into the wounding of some and the death of others (their death certificates are not attached to the file of the investigation thus far)

2 – Destructing of public facilities of the armed forces

3 – Deliberate destruction of facilities belonging to civilians

The prosecution decided to extend their imprisonment for 15 days.

On 13 October, before the fifteen days passed the defendants were called, without notifying their lawyers or their families, to be displayed before the armed forces men who were assigned to secure the Maspero building in order to identify them; they identified only three; the retired captain Mohammed Atef Mohammed Kaseer! We only learned of the news as a result of the presence of one of the lawyers coincidentally in the military prosecution.

On October 24, the defendants were transferred for the third time to the building of east military prosecution. Minor defendants were transferred to Al-Marg prison and others were transferred to Tora prison, where they were subjected to beating and humiliation, as a matter of fact, three of them were sexually assaulted by policemen inside the deportations car.

Upon arrival to the east military prosecution building, the defendants appeared before the prosecution prior to the session of renewal to be questioned about any additional statements. The lawyers renewed their request to have the defendants examined by forensic medicine due to their complaints of being beaten inside the prison (some of these injuries: bruises, cuts, tearing in the muscles of the shoulder, bleeding in the eye) and one of the defendants, who was subjected to sexual violation, documented his complaint in the prosecution.

In the session of renewal the lawyers were also surprised by the modification of the list of accusations to the following:

1 – The use of force and violence against members of the armed forces

2 – destruction of public facilities belonging to the Armed Forces

3 – Deliberate destruction of facilities belonging to civilians

4 – “Joining a group which is intended to disturb peace and public security and and the crowding of masses in front of the television and radio building, which led to the disturbance of peace and public security and the use of force and violence with the masses”

Again, it had been decided to renew the imprisonment of the defendants to be presented to the prosecution again on November 3.