GENEVA: The UN Committee against Torture ruled on Friday that Sweden breached the rights of an Egyptian man by deporting him to his homeland in 2001, where he was then tortured in prison.
"The committee has found that… the guarantees given by Egypt were not enough to assure that Mr. Ahmed Agiza was not at risk of torture," the committee said in a statement from Geneva.
The committee had already condemned Sweden in 2005 for having expelled Agiza despite international laws that governments should not send suspects to countries where they are likely to be tortured.
The Egyptian was deported in December 2001 along with another man, Mohammad al Zery. Both were asylum seekers and suspected of involvement in an extremist organization linked to the Al-Qaeda network.
After Sweden’s intelligence agency Saepo ordered that both men be expelled, they were handed over to US agents, put on a plane leased by the Pentagon and flown to Egypt.
The pair claimed they were mistreated during their transfer to Cairo and then tortured during their detention in Egypt.
In Egypt, Agiza received a 25-year prison sentence for terrorism which was later reduced to 15 years. Zery was freed by an Egyptian military court.
Sweden agreed in July 2008 to pay more than 300,000 euros (then $470,000) to Zery after admitting that he was wrongly expelled.
