TORTURE VICTIM SENTENCED TO THREE MONTHS IN JAIL
By Frederick Deknatel and Ethar Shalaby
The Daily Star Egypt staff

CAIRO: Imad Al-Kabir, the driver who was allegedly abused and sexually assaulted by police officers a year ago, was sentenced to three months hard labor on charges of resisting and obstructing the authorities and assaulting a policeman.

Al-Kabir had filed assault charges against the officers this past December.

Al-Kabir’s lawyer, Nasser Amin, told The Daily Star Egypt that he worried for his client’s safety in jail, specifically the possibility that convicts who are connected to the police officers will try to pressure Al-Kabir to drop his case against them while he is incarcerated.

“I think the police officers will try to push him to change,” Amin said, expressing fear “of any crimes against Imad when he is in jail.”

“We call on the Ministry of Interior to save him,” Amin maintained “because the situation is very dangerous in there. This is a case against Imad.”

Officials in the Ministry of Interior declined commenting on the case and said it was transferred to the Southern Giza Prosecution office and isn’t under their jurisdiction anymore.

The Southern Giza Prosecution office refused to divulge any information while the president and officials of the Criminal Court in Giza were unavailable for comment.

After an afternoon of legal meetings Wednesday, Amin told the Daily Star Egypt that his client would in fact serve a jail sentence of 2 months and 10 days.

The verdict of a Giza criminal court relates to the same January 2006 incident in Bulaq al-Dakrur. Al-Kabir, a 23 year-old microbus driver, apparently intervened in a dispute between police officers and a relative.

Al-Kabir told Human Rights Watch (HRW) that two plainclothes officers first beat him on the street before bringing him into the Bulaq police station where he was bound and whipped.

Cell phone video footage, allegedly shot by one of the police officers and eventually obtained by Egyptian bloggers in November, showed Al-Kabir lying on the floor of the Bulaq police station, naked from the waist down, as unidentified men beat him and then sodomized him with a stick.

Police released Al-Kabir after 36 hours without charges, the driver told HRW.

Al-Kabir later identified the two men as Islam Nabih, an officer, and Reda Fathi, a noncommissioned officer.

According to Al-Kabir's statements to Human Rights Watch, the officers hoped to "break his spirit" and intimidate other microbus drivers in his neighborhood by showing them the video, which was circulated among mobile phones before being posted online in November 2006 on leading Cairo blogs. The footage incited immediate outrage and media attention, and Al-Kabir's story was picked by a local tabloid.

Al-Kabir told HRW that he was threatened over the phone following the publication of his story in the Al-Fajr newspaper.

After he told state-run Al-Ahram in a Dec. 12 story that he was denying Al-Fajr's account and intending to sue the newspaper, Al-Kabir hired the human rights lawyer Amin, who is director of the Center for the Independence of the Judiciary and Legal Profession, and explained to a public prosecutor that the threats had made him retract his story and that he wanted the prosecutor to protect him and to press charges, HRW reported.

In an earlier interview with The Daily Star Egypt, Al-Kabir said: “The police took me to the station, abused me and threatened me not to utter a word of what they did to me, otherwise they will jail my brother and rape women in my family.”

Last month, Al-Kabir interfered in another argument between his brother and the police, and said he took the video to the house of the Interior Minister as evidence of police abuse.

“The Interior Minister’s security called some high-ranked officer, who came and took me to the police station. They kept interrogating me for a continuous 48 hours after I had written two petitions against them, one addressed to the general prosecutor and the other to the Interior Ministry,” said Al-Kabir.

He added the police threatened him again and asked him to withdraw his petitions but he refused.

“I will never let something like this pass easily. I believe there should be some action taken after all the assaults I have gone through. The police must know that the law should be applied on them before they unfairly apply it on poor people,” said Al-Kabir.

Since footage of Al-Kabir's torture online in November, clips of similar abuse and police brutality have been posted online.

"This is outrageous," Wael Abbas, one of the first bloggers to post the footage of Al-Kabir's torture, told the Daily Star Egypt. "It sends a message to anybody who intends to complain that this is going to happen to you."

Ayman Helmy, an official at the Interior Ministry, declined to comment on the subject, but said investigations are continuing and the ministry will immediately implement whatever decision the prosecution reaches.

He added that it is unlikely the prosecution will prove the incident since Al-Kabir lacks enough evidence,

“Al-Kabir is merely making allegations with no solid proof. But if the prosecution decides to jail the officers, free them or even prove the case, we will apply that immediately,” said Helmy.

In an earlier interview with The Daily Star Egypt, Al-Kabir had expressed confidence in the Egyptian court system saying he felt his honor had been returned to him after the two officers who allegedly abused him were detained.

“Let them be a good example for their fellow police officers. Let all other officers think for a moment before they abuse anyone.”

“I was sure that God would never leave unfairness spread out in Egypt. Thank God,” said Al-Kabir.