CAIRO: The compensations department at a Cairo civil court has postponed to Nov. 1 the hearing of a lawsuit filed by families of deceased 1967 war prisoners, who are demanding approximately LE 600 million from the Israeli government.
Sayed Abou Raya’s family had initiated court proceedings following the broadcast of Israeli documentary film “Roh Shaked, on Israeli television.
The family is suing the Israeli Prime Minister, the Minister of Defense, Head of Israeli television and the Israeli ambassador in Egypt for LE 15 million in compensation for the torture to which Sayed was subjected before his death.
“This is a very important case as Israel has completely violated international law and the Geneva Convention regarding POWs. Both the Egyptian and Israeli governments have documents proving that as well as testimonies by those who carried out these brutal activities and killed many POWs, said Abdel Aleem Mohamed, an expert on Israeli studies at Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies.
A number of families of POWs from 1967 have joined the Abou Rayas in court last Saturday and are suing the Israeli officials.
“Even if they don’t reach anything, these families have to join forces to take this lawsuit not only to local courts, but to international ones, said Mohamed.
He cited Italy that has recently paid Libya $5 billion in compensation for its 30-year occupation.
“We are not asking for compensation for occupation, we are just asking for compensation for the brutal treatment Egyptians received in their prisons, said Mohamed.
The court had previously assigned a committee of experts from the Egyptian Radio and Television Union to examine the scenes and photos in the documentary, to check whether they include the torture of Egyptian POWs, how many they were and the condition they were in.
“The Spirit of Shaked documentary is about an Israeli army unit led by Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, the current Israeli minister of infrastructure.
It recalls incidents from the 1967 war by a number of former Shaked soldiers and how they regret their actions in the war. The soldiers described how their use of force was “excessive and their actions motivated by “revenge.
These manifestations could have passed unnoticed if it were not for references to the killing of 250 Egyptian prisoners of war after the end of military operations.
The release of the documentary in the beginning of 2007 had sparked a series of events in Egypt, which included the cancellation of a routine visit by an Israeli minister to Egypt to negotiate a natural gas deal.
People’s Assembly representatives also demanded the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador as well as the withdrawal of Egypt’s diplomats in Tel Aviv.
