CAIRO: Human rights groups urged Egyptian police on Thursday not to reinstate two policemen who served less than two years in jail for torturing and sodomizing a Cairo bus driver.
Islam Nabih and Reda Fathi were sentenced in November 2007 to three years in prison after footage of them beating and sodomizing bus driver Emad El-Kabir in a Cairo police station was circulated online.
It would be wholly inappropriate for either of these two men to be reinstated in the police or appointed to other official bodies, Malcolm Smart, Amnesty International s Middle East and North Africa director, said in a statement.
Reinstating the two would send a negative signal about Egyptian authorities commitment to fight against torture of prisoners, he said.
A security official told AFP that Nabih, whose father was a deputy minister in the government, might resume his duties. It was not immediately clear whether Fathi would be going back to work.
It is just talk now; it is not certain he will be re-appointed, the official said.
The government insists that there are a few bad apples and isolated cases and they prosecute officers who torture, said Hossam Bahgat, director of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights.
In reality the system is full of deficiencies that not only assure impunity but also encourage abuse, he said.
Rights groups say torture is routine in Egypt and policemen are seldom prosecuted for it.
Footage of Kabir s ordeal starkly brought torture in police detention to the public attention. -AFP
