Ex-Guantánamo prisoner seeks amnesty from Egyptian military

August 2, 2011 Reprive

Reprieve is calling on Egypt's Military Prosecutor to grant an immediate amnesty to Adel Al-Gazzar, a former Red Crescent volunteer erroneously held in Guantánamo for eight years and subsequently arrested on returning home to Egypt in June.

Adel remains imprisoned by the Egyptian military on the basis of an in absentia sentence handed down by the Mubarak regime in 2002, while Adel was in Guantánamo and unaware that the trial was even taking place.

Due to the flimsiness of the Mubarak-era charges, Adel’s lawyers are confident that his sentence would be overturned on appeal. However, 50 days of the 60-day window during which Adel has a legal right to appeal have now passed and the Military Prosecutor continues to create arbitrary obstacles, effectively preventing him from challenging his imprisonment.

Reprieve is alarmed by the Egyptian military's apparent attempt to strip Adel once more of his legal rights, and is now calling on the Military Prosecutor to grant compassionate release on the basis that he has already endured nearly decade of unlawful imprisonment without charge or trial.

While in US custody at Kandahar and then Guantánamo, Adel was subjected to torture – including routine beatings, exposure to freezing temperatures and sleep deprivation – and lost a leg to gangrene due to medical negligence.

Soon after Adel was sold into US custody, the US authorities realized that they had made a mistake and he was cleared for release. However, because the US deemed it unsafe for Adel to return to Egypt, he spent eight years in Guantánamo. He was eventually transferred to Slovakia where he was illegally imprisoned in an immigration detention centre for over six months.

It was urgent concerns about his family that forced Adel returned to Egypt in June, despite the risk of re-arrest and imprisonment. Adel’s family has been left extremely vulnerable by his decade-long absence. His four children whom he had last seen as babies are now teenagers and his elderly mother recently suffered a cerebral hemorrhage which has left her paralyzed and requiring full-time care.

Reprieve's Life After Guantanamo Project Officer, Katie Taylor said: “Adel has already suffered far too much in one lifetime. He has been unjustly detained for nearly a decade, and as a result, has suffered permanent injury and chronic health problems and his family now stands on the edge of poverty. The Military Prosecutor has the ability to finally give Adel and his family the justice that is long overdue by granting him amnesty and releasing him.”

ENDS

Notes to editors

1. For further information please contact Donald Campbell in Reprieve’s press office on +44 (0) 20 7427 1082 / (0) 7791 755 415

2. Adel Al Gazzar was injured in a US airstrike while volunteering with the Red Crescent in Afghanistan, and subsequently sold from his hospital bed in Pakistan to American security agents for a bounty; he was then brutally tortured in Kandahar, subjected to medical neglect so severe it resulted in the amputation of his leg, detained in Guantánamo Bay for eight years without charge or trial, and detained in a Slovakian immigration detention centre upon his release from Guantánamo—again without charge or reason. He returned to Egypt to be reunited with his family, hoping that Egypt’s revolution would have led to a transformation in the Mubarak-era judicial process, but was arrested on arrival at the airport and has been imprisoned ever since. His lawyers’ efforts to submit a memorandum of appeal—a right guaranteed under Egyptian law—have been thwarted by the Military Prosecutor. Further information on Adel can be found here: http://www.reprieve.org.uk/cases/adelalgazzar

Ex-Guantanamo prisoner held in Egypt

After a decade in detention, Adel al-Gazzar arrested on his return home on what his lawyers call "trumped-up charges".

by Bilal Randeree 14 Jun 2011 Al jazeera

Adel al-Gazzar spent eight years at Guantanamo Bay after it was deemed unsafe for him to return to Egypt [Reuters]

Egyptian police have arrested a man who returned home after being jailed for years at the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay.

Adel al-Gazzar told reporters on Monday that the Americans had not sent him back to Egypt for fear that he would be tortured in his homeland.

He was arrested upon arrival in Egypt on what his lawyers describe as "trumped-up charges".

Katie Taylor, who works for Reprieve, a legal charity based in London that represents prisoners in Guantanamo Bay, told Al Jazeera that al-Gazzar suffered a "decade-long ordeal of torture and detention without trial".

"He arrived home to Egypt, only to face further discredited, trumped-up charges."

Al-Gazzar was sentenced in absentia in Egypt in 2001 to three years in prison for affiliation with a group called Al-Wa'ad.

'Political prisoner'

Ahmed Ghappour, al-Gazzar's lawyer in the US, said that nearly half of the defendants present at the trial were found innocent.

"Such cases were often used as a tool by the Mubarak regime to silence dissent," Ghappour said.

He added that before being arrested in Egypt, Al-Gazzar was "allowed to see his wife and four children for about an hour". This was the first time he had seen them in over ten years.

Katherine O'Shea, press officer for Reprieve, told Al Jazeera that Al-Gazzar was taken to "the Military Prosecution to sign his sentence, and was then transferred to the Criminal Prison of Appeals in Cairo".

"This is unusual as political prisoners are usually sent to the Tora prison, which has better conditions. The Criminal Prison of Appeals is overcrowded," O'Shea said.

She said that he on arrival at the prison, the security services were concerned about the conditions and decided to transfer him to be detained in the airport.

"Adel has been told that tomorrow he will be taken to the prison authority, who will determine which prison he will be sent to serve his sentence."

Not safe to return

Al-Gazzar says he went to Pakistan in 2000 to preach Islam, and signed up with the Red Crescent to go into Afghanistan to help refugees. Within two hours of crossing the border to a refugee camp, the area was hit by a US airstrike.

His leg was injured in the airstrike and he was treated in a Pakistani hospital. He says he was sold to the US military for a bounty and transferred to a US prison in Kandahar, Afghanistan.

Al-Gazzar was reportedly tortured for eleven days before being transferred to Guantanamo Bay. He had received no medical attention during his time in Kandahar, and as a result, his leg had to be amputated.

Cleared for release by US authorities, it was deemed unsafe for him to return to Egypt and he had to wait eight years for a third country to accept him.

Released from Guantanamo in 2010, he was transferred to Slovakia where he was imprisoned in an immigration detention centre for more than six months.

He was released after going on a hunger strike to protest against the manner in which he was being held.

Katie Taylor said that Reprieve was calling for Al-Gazzar to be allowed "to rejoin his beloved family and to build a new life in the new Egypt".

"What kind of ‘Arab Spring’ is it when the Egyptian military compounds the mistakes of America's 'War of Terror'?"