The Egyptian judiciary system is nothing but a killing tool used by the regime
Under Sisi, 74 people have been executed, while 85 face the risk of execution at any moment
Arab Organisation for Human Rights in the UK (AOHR UK) said that on Saturday, October 3, the Egyptian authorities carried out a new massacre against 15 detainees by extrajudicially executing them in two separate cases. Their execution came as a result of farce trials which lacked the minimum standards of a fair trials by politicised judicial bodies which lack all measure of integrity or independence.
AOHR UK stated that two of those executed are “Yasser Abdel Samad Muhammad Abdel Fattah” and “Yasser Al-Abassiri Abdel Naim” who were tried in Case No. 20091 of 2013 in the Bab Sharq Felonies, known in the media as “Alexandria Library Events”, and the death sentence against them was confirmed. On July 03, 2017, the Egyptian Court of Cassation rejected their appeals, the ruling became final.
The events of the case in question took place during the dispersal of Rabaa Al-Adawiya and Al-Nahda sit-ins, similar to hundreds of cases in which thousands of opponents were falsely charged. The charges were issued against the defendants randomly and lacked any evidence and was only based on the police investigations and on confessions of detainees extracted under torture.
AOHR UK stated that 13 detainees were raised executed on the same date in Case No. 11877 of 2014 Felonies Department of Giza, registered under No. 35 of 2014 Felonies of the Supreme State Security, known in the media as the “Soldiers of Egypt” case, where the final death sentence was confirmed on May 07, 2019.
The executed detainees are: Bilal Ibrahim Sobhy Farhat, Mohamed Saber Ramadan, Gamal Saad, Abdullah Al-Sayed, Yasser Mohamed Ahmed, Saad Abdel-Raouf, Mohamed Tawfik Hassan, Mahmoud Saber, Samir Ibrahim Saad, Islam Al-Shahat, Mohamed Adel Abdel Hamid, Mohamed Hassan Ezz El-Din, Tag El-Din Hemeda.
As usual in such cases, the conviction ruling was not based on any material evidence incriminating any of the defendants. Furthermore, the witnesses whom the court sought to testify against the defendants did not identify any of them or provide evidence on their connection to the crime. The evidence found with the defendants did not constitute any crime as they were merely books, food voutures and mobile phones.
Th CDs provided by the security authorities had some of the defendants playing the crime at the crime scene.
The detainees informed the court and the investigation authorities that they were forced under torture and threats by the security services to play the scene.
AOHR UK added that all of the defendants in that case were subjected to enforced disappearance for periods exceeding 100 days, and the security authorities falsified the date of their arrest. The defendants were also subjected to severe torture for long periods, and most of the detainees were brought before the prosecution without the presence of a lawyer in the first investigation sessions.
It is worth noting that the judicial authorities refused to investigate any of these violations, despite the presence of many reports from the families of those detainees which were sent to the judicial authorities following their arrest and before their presentation before the prosecution office.
AOHR UK pointed out that the Egyptian authorities have carried out mass executions against defendants in violation of the legal procedures, without granting the defendants of their minimum rights, and without investigating the crimes of torture and enforced disappearance that detainees were subjected to, which makes these practices premeditated murders added to the Egyptian regime’s long record of extrajudicial executions.
AOHR UK stated that the number of detainees whose death sentence was carried out in political cases under the current regime rose to 74, with 85 other defendants in different cases awaiting execution at any time as all legal methods to appeal these rulings have been exhausted.
AOHR UK called on the international community, the General Assembly of the United Nations and the relevant UN bodies to take strict and serious measures to deter the Egyptian regime and stop it from committing more crimes and killing innocent people through politicised judicial apparatus that is only used as a killing tool in the hands of this
