Egypt detained rights lawyer Ibrahim Metwally


Fahwad Al-Khadoumi (nsnbc) : Ibrahim Metwally, a human rights lawyer who has attracted international attention with his involvement in investigating alleged forced disappearances and the death of exchange student Giulio Regeni has been detained. Egypt’s High State Security Prosecution ordered the detention for 15 days pending investigation.

Giulio Regeni - still too "hot" an issue to allow his family's lawyer to leave for Geneva?

Giulio Regeni – still too “hot” an issue to allow his family’s lawyer to leave for Geneva?

Ibrahim Metwally was detained on charges of “spreading false news and establishing an illegal group” called “Association of the Families of the Disappeared”. Besides working for the allegedly “disappeared”, Metwally is also part of the legal team representing the family of the late Giulio Regeni who was murdered in the Egyptian capital Cairo in 2016.

Metwally was arrested at Cairo International Airport on Sunday. He was set to travel to Geneva, Switzerland, to address a United nations meeting there. He was scheduled to give a speech on enforced and involuntary disappearances in Egypt, and he was to speak about the highly-controversial Regeni case as well. The chairman of the European Parliament’s Subcommittee on Human Rights, Pier Antonio Panzeri called on the Egyptian authorities on Tuesday to unconditionally release Metwally.

Bilateral relations between Egypt and Italy suffered substantially after Italian researcher and student Regeni had been killed in Cairo. The Italian government rejected several claims by the Egyptian authorities in regards to the killing of Regeni, and accused Egypt’s ministry of interior of killing Regeni. However, Egypt denies this claim. The Egyptian government have been repeatedly accused of conducting enforced disappearance on activists. However, Egypt denies this claim.

The body of Italian graduate student Giulio Regeni was found on the outskirts of Cairo in February 2016. His body showed signs of torture. Cairo and Rome have since been at loggerheads over a details of a joint investigation. On Thursday Egyptian police killed four gang members suspected in killing Regeni.

Regeni Passport_Cairo_Egyptian Interio Ministry_Mar 2016Egypt’s Foreign Ministry stated in March 2016 that police raided the home of the sister of one of the killed suspects and discovered Giulio Regeni’s passport, his Visa Card as well as his ID cards from the American University in Cairo and Cambridge University there. The Interior Ministry noted that the four gang members were specialized in impersonating police officers and kidnapping foreigners.

Regeni was a Cambridge PhD student at Girton College in the Political and International Department. He was a visiting scholar for the American University in Cairo. Regeni went reportedly missing as he was heading from Giza’s Behoos metro station to Bab-el-Louk in downtown. It is at this point in time uncertain whether or not Giulio Regeni has had ties to a foreign intelligence service or to any of the outlawed organizations in Egypt.

Giulio Regeni’s affiliation with the American University in Cairo has prompted questions about whether Regeni was operating in Egypt for a foreign intelligence service. The American University is known as a hub for people with ties to intelligence services. Among its alumni are, among others, CIA Director John Brennan and New York Times “columnist” Thomas Friedman. Well-informed sources as well as Egyptian authorities have also noted that Regeni’s work in Egypt may have brought him in touch with potentially dangerous circles with links to terrorist organizations. Regeni was officially studying labor rights  and organizations in Egypt. Several human rights organizations have suggested that Regeni may have been tortured and killed by Egyptian security forces.

F/AK – nsnbc 14.09.2017



Source Article from https://nsnbc.me/2017/09/14/egypt-detained-rights-lawyer-ibrahim-metwally/

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