CAIRO: Unidentified army leaders promised to investigate allegations of torture by Military Police after rights groups issued a statement condemning comments by their chief General Hamdy Badeen denying the allegations.
"Army leaders sent us a mediator, a journalist, asking for the documents carrying the results of our investigations and testimonials by tortured and detained civilians," Gamal Eid, head of Arab Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI), told Daily News Egypt.
"We will wait for the results of the investigation and hope that it will be transparent enough and that whoever is responsible for this will be put on trial and all those detained will be released."
General Badeen denied in an interview with Al-Shorouk daily newspaper all torture allegations against the army, claiming that those allegations only aim to "ruin the relationship between the people and the army."
Rights groups including ANHRI, the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, Hisham Mubarak Law Center, the Cairo Center for Human Rights Studies and other organizations issued a statement condemning remarks by Badeen, demanding an immediate release of all detainees and a transparent investigation into the allegations.
"We did not fabricate videos or photos of army torture, and if they do not reflect the truth, then the torture marks on the bodies of the victims and the testimonies of doctors do not lie," the statement read.
"We sent two copies of the file, one to the army and another to Prime Minister Essam Sharaf and I hope that a quick investigation is in place," said Eid.
