CAIRO: Human rights groups called on authorities to explain the circumstances surrounding the death of Tora prisoner Essam Atta earlier this week, urging a transparent investigation into the incident and holding accountable whoever is responsible.
“We were hoping that the Ministry of Interior’s strategy would change and that the general prosecution would seek the truth impartially, but nothing has changed,” said Malek Adly, lawyer at the Hisham Mubarak Law Center, representing Atta’s family, at a press conference Tuesday.
In a statement that was issued at a press conference on Monday, the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, The Nadeem Center for Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence and the Tahrir Doctors Society held Interior Minister Mansour El-Essawy, Assistant Interior Minister for Prisons Mohamed Naguib and the prison warden responsible for Atta’s death.
This statement claimed Atta was tortured last Tuesday and Wednesday and died on Thursday.
His family said Atta called them from prison and told them that an officer named Nour Hassan, inserted a hose into his mouth and anus and forced him to drink detergent after another prisoner accused Atta of swallowing weed.
Last Friday, Atta’s body underwent an autopsy attended by two members of Tahrir Doctors, a group of independent doctors who provided on-site medical treatment to protesters during the January uprising.
The organization issued a statement early Saturday in which they said that they did not see any signs of torture on Atta’s body.
“We are neither denying nor confirming that there was torture, we are just describing what we saw,” said Mohamed Fatouh, the organization’s head, during the press conference.
Ahmed Seyam and Mohamed Maged, from the Tahrir Doctors Society, attended the autopsy.
Seyam ruled out claims that Atta was sodomized with a hose because by the time they opened his colon they found well-formed stool.
“If water was pushed inside his body, the stool would have been liquidated and the colon would have been empty,” Seyam told reporters.
Seyam said that by the time he went to the Zeinhom morgue, the autopsy had already begun with incisions made on the right side of Atta’s forehead, the back of his head and on the side of his back bone. However, he denied that anyone could have passed any capsules through these incisions.
He said that there were no marks on Atta’s body except for a bruise on the right side of the chest.
Two surgical glove fingers stuffed with two kinds of drugs were found inside Atta’s body, one of which is two centimeters wide and five centimeters long filled with cannabis, Seyam said. The encapsulated latex roll contained a "substance that resembles hashish and 6-9 liquidated pills" inside the stomach, he added.
Seyam refused to express his personal opinion when asked how these capsules were found in Atta’s body since his prison mates said he was neither a smoker nor a drug addict.
According to the doctor, torture by hoses does not necessarily leave marks.
“I am only describing what my naked eyes could see, but there is a lot that should have been seen under the microscope,” said Seyam.
During the press conference, the doctors announced that according to the toxins unit at Qasr Al-Aini hospital, Atta died of poisoning, they also said that the unit found traces of Tramadol, a painkiller, and hashish in Atta’s blood.
“This does not mean Tramadol or hashish caused his death,” said Dr Magdy Samdy, “and the capsules that were found in his body do not mean that he took them willingly; they might have forced him to swallow the capsules.”
However, although Tahrir Doctors oversaw the autopsy, human rights organizations are calling for a new one.
“We filed a request to redo the whole autopsy by a committee of three forensics doctors and one independent doctor,” Malek told reporters.
Malek raised concerns that a police officer was present at the morgue before the doctors started the autopsy. He explained that presence of police officers during such autopsies is illegal unless they have permission from the general prosecutor.
“According to the law, only one representative of the victim’s family and the forensics doctors should be present during the autopsy,” the lawyer explained.
During the press conference, Salma Abdel Gelil Mostafa, from the No to Military Trials group, responsible for Atta’s case, said she believed Atta died as a result of torture.
“He called me three times from inside the prison … He always complained that he’s being tortured for no reason. He never mentioned the water hose, probably because it wasn’t used at that time or maybe because he was embarrassed,” said Mostafa.
She explained that Essam had told her that the officers are harder on prisoners sentenced by military courts.
Prominent activist and doctor Aida Seif El-Dawla, said Atta’s prison inmates who attested that he was tortured.
“Some witnesses said that they are ready to say what they have seen but only if the case is brought to the criminal court not at the prosecutor’s office … because a case at the prosecutor’s can be archived because of lack of evidence,” she said.
She added that to guarantee an impartial autopsy, the forensics department should be granted independence. Moreover, proper equipment should be given to the morgue.
Dr. Soad Abdel Gaffar, who conducted the autopsy, is yet to issue the final report.
“Even according to Dr. Ahmed Seyam’s statement, there are marks that are not explained. It is the job of the forensics doctor to explain all these bruises and marks,” Seif El-Dawla concluded.
