CAIRO: The Military Prosecution referred on Tuesday former Guantanamo Bay detainee Adel Fatouh Al-Gazzar to Cairo Appeals Prison, said director of Egypt-based Human Rights Association for the Assistance of Prisoners Mohamed Za’er.
Al-Gazzar contested the verdict but will remain in prison until it is considered.
A military court had sentenced Al-Gazzar to three years in prison in absentia earlier in 2002 on charges of being affiliated to an illegal group.
On Monday, the National Security Agency arrested Al-Gazzar upon arriving at the Cairo International Airport on his way back home from Slovakia.
“The authorities took Al-Gazzar at first to the Military Prosecution after his arrival. They moved him back to the airport where he spent the night after they found out that the prosecutor had already left,” Za’er, also a lawyer, told Daily News Egypt.
“This afternoon the military prosecution informed Al-Gazzar of the verdict, referring him to an appeals prison not usually used for political prisoners,” he added.
Al-Gazzar was sentenced to three years in absentia over El-Wa’d Fundamentalist Cell case in September 2002 after 10 months of hearings.
A total of 94 men, including foreign nationals, faced trial on charges of forming and managing an illegal group that aimed to attack personal freedoms and rights guaranteed by the constitution. They were also accused of planning to assassinate security officials and public figures, bombing state institutions and establishments and possessing unlicensed weapons and explosives.
They were first arrested in May 2001 and later referred to a military trail via a presidential order five months later.
Fifty-one men were acquitted and the rest received different verdicts.
The verdict against Al-Gazzar was contested Tuesday before the military court, which is expected to look into the case within 60 days.
“If approved, Al-Gazzar will be granted a re-trial, though it is no longer a crime to be a member in an Islamist group following the January 25 Revolution,” Za’er said. “For example, the Muslim Brotherhood now has an official political party after being banned for years.”
Reprieve, a UK-based group advocating the rights of Guantanamo Bay prisoners, called for releasing Al-Gazzar until he is granted a fair trial.
“The persecution of Adel Al-Gazzar makes a mockery of everything the revolution stands for. Where is the new dawn? Justice and the rule of law must return to Egypt,” Founder and Director of Reprieve Clive Stafford Smith asked.
“This is the third time Al-Gazzar has been punished for completely unsubstantiated allegations. We hope the Egyptian military [regime] will put an end to Adel’s decade-long ordeal,” Smith added.
According to an official statement by the interior ministry, Al-Gazzar managed to flee the country, but he was arrested during a US air strike against Al-Qaeda terrorist network in Afghanistan.
However, Za’er argued that Al-Gazzar was already located across the Pakistani-Afghani borders conducting preaching activities and volunteering with the International Committee of the Red Crescent at the time when the Egyptian court handed-him down the verdict.
At that time, according to Reprieve, Al-Gazzar was seized after being severely wounded by a US airstrike in 2001.
“In the midst of his recovery, he was transferred to a US prison in Kandahar, Afghanistan, where he was subject to severe beatings, exposure to freezing temperatures, sleep deprivation for days on end, and suspension by the wrists,” US-based lawyer Ahmed Ghappour said.
“[Al-Gazzar] received no medical attention during his time in Kandahar, and as a result, his leg was infected with gangrene so severe that it had to be amputated,” Ghappour added.
The US authorities cleared Al-Gazzar for release, but he was forced to wait eight years in Guantánamo Bay for a ‘safe’ country — Slovakia — to accept him.
Described by Reprieve as an “Egyptian religious missionary,” Al Gazzar was resettled in Slovakia by the Barack Obama Administration in January 2010 due to fears of persecution or imprisonment during the overthrown regime in Egypt.
“Upon arrival in Slovakia in January 2010, Al-Gazzar was inexplicably imprisoned without charge [at an immigration detention center] for over six months [where] he underwent a hunger strike in order to secure his own release,” the group explained in a statement.
“Following the Egyptian revolution, Al-Gazzar felt confident enough in the ‘new’ regime to travel home. His confidence was misplaced; he was seized at Cairo airport at 3 pm this afternoon; denied access to a lawyer and arrested,” it added.
Former president Hosni Mubarak stepped down in Feb. 11 after a popular revolt that demanded his ouster, handing over authority to the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF).
“Al-Gazzar’s arrest was based on a typical remnant of the Mubarak regime,” Reprieve said. Ghappour denounced the Egyptian authorities’ arrest of his client.
“Since he was handed down a verdict in absentia, Al-Gazzar has the right to a re-trial … or the case should be dismissed in the first place,” Ghappour told Daily News Egypt.
“The point is Al-Gazzar’s case is political [not criminal]. The Mubarak regime used to frame religious people under the pretext that they were affiliated to Islamist groups,” he added.
