Mohamed has been transferred to several detention centers affiliated with the Ministry of Interior.
This statement was originally published on afteegypt.org on 20 May 2024.
AFTE condemns the enforced disappearance of activist “Mahmoud Mohamed,” known as the “T-shirt detainee”, following the Ministry of Interior’s failure to enforce the ruling for his release, issued on 23 April, as yesterday, the Head of El-Khanka Police Station informed the lawyers of Mahmoud Mohamed’s defense team that he was not detained at the station.
This comes against the backdrop of the Criminal Court decision to postpone the hearing of Mahmoud Mohamed’s case until 26 June 2024. Meanwhile, Mohamed was released on a financial guarantee of 10,000 Egyptian Pounds following the court’s session on 23 April 2024. Since then, the Ministry of Interior has failed to enforce the court’s decision and Mahmoud Mohamed has been transferred to several detention centers affiliated with the Ministry of Interior; starting with the jail in the 15th of May area in Helwan, at the end of last April; and then Al-Marg Police Station, where the report of the incident for which Mohamed was detained was filed, but the station refused to receive him. Mohamed was then transferred to Ain Shams police station, then again to the 15th of May jail – known as El Takhshiba (The cell) – and finally he ended up at El-Khanka police station, where he was transferred on 5 May.
Mohamed’s arrest dates back to 30 August 2023 at a security checkpoint in Giza governorate, in the enforcement of an absentia verdict issued against him on 26 February 2018, by the Emergency State Security Criminal Court, for life imprisonment in Public Prosecution Case No. 37883 of 2017, on charges of possession of explosive substances.
On 5 September 2023, Mohamed was presented to the East Cairo Public Prosecution Office, where he signed a request for retrial proceedings and since then, he has been detained pending his retrial sessions until the North Cairo Criminal Court decided to release him on 23 April, while postponing his trial session to 26 June 2024.
Mohamed suffers from severe deterioration of his health and physical conditions due to a surgery he underwent in Badr Prison, from which he has not fully recovered, as well as mobility challenges as a result of two operations requiring complete rest, which were performed on him in 2016. As a result of these health conditions, the court issued its decision to release him.
AFTE stresses the need for the Public Prosecution to play its role in investigating the involvement of the Ministry of Interior in the crime of unlawful detention and enforced disappearance of an Egyptian citizen and the failure to enforce the court’s decision to release him, as the defense lawyers for Mahmoud Mohamed submitted a report to the Public Prosecutor (No. 30041 of 2024, Petitions of the Public Prosecutor).
AFTE holds the Ministry of Interior and the Head of El-Khanka Police Station fully responsible for the physical and psychological safety of activist Mahmoud Mohamed, and demands that the Ministry of Interior comply with the court’s decision to release him, immediately revealing his whereabouts, and enable him to contact his family and lawyer.
