A child understood to be 15 years old has been arrested on charges of making and producing firearms by Cairo police.
According to state-owned newspaper Al-Ahram, security officers arrested the student, Ebada Gomaa, from his family house in the Cairo suburb of Nasr City on charges of manufacturing and trafficking in firearms.
Police officers from Nasr City received information about the student prior to his arrest and were informed that the student was previously accused of the same charges of producing weapons in the Ramses riot case, the newspaper reports.
An officer in charge of the raid named Islam Othman reports that the police force discovered a wide array of weaponry, including improvised weapons to fire birdshots, cartridges, and machinery used in the production of weapons.
The student admitted to producing the weapons in order to be used in protests in support of ousted Muslim Brotherhood president Mohamed Morsi.
The arrest of the boy was reported by local press on Sunday, but family members of the accused say that he was abducted on the first day of Eid Al-Fitr, two days before the Ministry of Interior announced the arrest. The boy’s family also give a different story to that given by official sources.
Friends and family members, including the student’s brother Ammar Gomaa and his sister Aya Abbas, have spoken online of their younger brother’s arrest.
Daily News Egypt was unable to speak directly to the family.
They claim he was kidnapped whilst playing football with friends, and was taken and severely beaten. Two days after the kidnapping, he appeared in a police station in Nasr city on charges of manufacturing homemade firearms for use in demonstrations, using a residence for the production of weaponry, and preparing to undertake acts of sabotage and violence.
Having visited the student in jail, family members claim that he has been beaten, electrocuted and threatened with a jack-knife and that confessions elicited by the police have been produced by torture.
The Ramses riots events took place in August 2013, soon after the dispersal of supporters of former president Mohamed Morsi from Rabaa Al Adaweya Square.
According to reports at the time, investigators charged those arrested from the events with attempting to storm Azbakiya police station, attempting to block 6th of October Bridge. Some were accused of the use of bird shot, Molotov cocktails and bladed weapons.
