Britons freed from Egypt claim torture

Daily Star Egypt Staff
4 Min Read

LONDON: Three Britons who spent nearly four years in prison in Egypt for membership of a banned Islamic group said Wednesday they had been repeatedly tortured for their political beliefs. The allegations came after Reza Pankhurst, Ian Nisbet and Maajid Nawaz were freed by the Egyptian authorities and returned to London s main Heathrow Airport early Wednesday evening. All three freely admit to being members of Hizbut Tahrir in Britain, which advocates the creation of a worldwide Islamic state. Although currently legal in Britain, the organization is proscribed in Egypt. Speaking for the men, Nisbet, 32, told reporters they had been imprisoned by a brutal and evil regime in Egypt and condemned British Prime Minister Tony Blair for going on holiday with his family there. We were tortured and electrocuted and we and our families were threatened and we were forced to sign a confession we neither agreed with nor sanctioned, he said. We experienced and witnessed and met people who were tortured in the most grotesque and obscene ways for belonging to political opposition parties. Our thoughts and prayers are with the thousands of Egyptian political prisoners we have left behind. The trio, were arrested in April 2002 as part of a crackdown on Islamist groups after the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States and sentenced to five years in jail in March last year. They were freed Tuesday after their defense lawyer appealed for their early release on the grounds they had already spent four years in custody. But their reunion with family, including children they not seen for nearly five years, was delayed for almost four hours after they were detained by officers from the Metropolitan Police s Special Branch unit. Nisbet said they were interrogated, had to give DNA samples and have their fingerprints taken. Their lawyer Stephen Jakobi, director of British legal campaign group Fair Trials Abroad, said the men were victims of gross injustice while their treatment had put Guantanamo in the shade . It was also incompatible with the status of a friendly foreign power, he added. They had been and remain devout Muslims committed to radical political change. They have never supported violence or terrorism in any shape or form, he told reporters. All three were beaten regularly and forcibly deprived of sleep. They were given filthy scraps of food and blindfolded and handcuffed behind their backs for many days. Jakobi claimed one was given electric shocks because he could not answer questions in Arabic. All three were held incommunicado for 11 days and denied legal access for 48 days. They were all forced to listen to the incessant screams of helpless victims of torture chambers, pleading for mercy, being tortured in the most disgusting and shameless manner, he added. AFP

TAGGED:
Share This Article
Leave a comment