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Tarhila (Transfer)

Report on the “Abu Zaabal” transfer van incident

Prepared by AFTE researchers

Emad Mubarak, Menna Elmasry, Sarah Ramadan

Edited by

Mohamed Abdel Salam

Director, AFTE research unit

Cover Design:Internal Design: Amal Hamed

Publisher:

Association o Freedom of

Thought and Expression

info@afteegypt.orgwww.afteegypt.org

Contants

Report methodology

Introduction: Lest we forget

Preface: Violence settles political debate

The Abu Zaabal transfer

The story: how were they killed in the van?

Before moving

About the transfer van

Arriving at Abu Zaabal military prison

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Why was the door closed?

How many times was the van opened in six hours?

Transferring the prisoners.. what happened?

CS gas

Prison administration.. a different story

At the morgue

Stages of litigation, description of the crime (testimonies of survivors versus testimonies of defendants)

I. Stages of litigation in the transfer van case

II. Different versions of defining the crime: murder versus manslaughter.

From the case file.. information and reports

Basic information

Names of victims killed in the incident

Names of defendants

Medical and chemical lab reports

Technical report

Conclusion

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Report methodology

This report was based on oral archiving using the testimonies of victims ‘families and some lawyers, as well as reports of survivors’ testimonies published online. The report also relied on the lawsuit files, in which some officers were accused of manslaughter of victims of the incident, the testimonies of army recruits and security men who attended the incident, as well as expert and medical reports.

The report used interviews conducted by the team with the lawyers who worked on the case file, as well as the texts of some Egyptian laws, to analyze the course of the lawsuit in the prison transfer vehicle incident. The report also used press releases, official statements and rights reports related to the incident.

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Introduction: Lest we forget the victims and survivors

“Glory to those who are not known!” .. a saying that resonated widely among the citizens during the various demonstrations and protests after the Egyptian revolution, addressing the audience on the sidewalks where tens of thousands of Egyptians gathered, leaving some bystanders wondering: who are the “unknown”? Are they those who were lost in the events of the revolution and were not identified, or those who were imprisoned for months or years with no highlight of their suffering, or are they people who disappeared under nonspecific circumstances.. Despite the diverse meaning of those “unknown” it is probably linked to those in events and incidents, the address of which was monopolized by the state.. i.e it is the unsaid story.. the unknown story.. the narrative that tries to represent the voices of the marginalized and oppressed, while the state uses the tools of the law and the media, to impose its own narrative on what happened during the years of the revolution and after.

The authorities tried to blur the features of that bloody summer of 2013, where it seemed that the victims despite their huge numbers, and the incidents and their excessive violence did not qualify as important issues to be discussed by the public. The most important

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thing was “the victory of the military institution over the enemies of the homeland”. The Abu Zaabal prisoner transfer vehicle incident was one of those episodes that the ruling authority wanted to conceal with obscurity and vagueness, so that it does not appear as a crime committed by this authority against helpless imprisoned civilians. The rationale in the summer of 2013 was that the army and police forces are facing armed demonstrations and protests. How could this description apply to defendants in the custody of security forces and inside one of its prisons? Even if this appears to some to be a crime, their voices will remain besieged, and the accounts of the incident will remain absent.

The Abu Za’abal prison transfer incident took place on August 18, 2013, between 6 am and 3 pm, where 37 out of 45 people who were deported to Abu Zaabal prison in the prison van were killed. The defendants were deported after being arrested for participating in the Raba’a sit-in, which was dispersed by security forces using excessive violence four days before the Abu Zaabal incident. The incident occurred at the peak of the use of excessive violence against civilians in the protests following the impeachment of former President Mohamed Morsi. Only 8 people survived. The rest of the deportees died of suffocation, but the cause of death remained controversial. Did they suffocate as a result of the gas bomb thrown into the van after repeated pleas to open the door for ventilation? Or did they suffocate due to overcrowding in a vehicle not meant to accommodate more than 25 individuals in view of the available ventilation potential and vehicle space. The controversy also extended to the legal definition of the murder, was it manslaughter or deliberate murder?

However, this report mainly attempts to break the wall of silence imposed by the Authority, and to recall what happened, drawing on the accounts of survivors and the victims’ families, in one of the scenes of violation of the right to life. The report presents alternative narratives, through its documented material, in an effort to enhance the ability of individuals and society to learn the truth about facts and events that were associated with the period of political and social change since 2011.

The lawsuit of the Abu Za’abal incident has not yet been resolved. Lieutenant Colonel Amr Farouq, Deputy Commander of Heliopolis police station, Capt. Ibrahim El Morsi, Lieutenant Islam Helmy and Lieutenant Mohamed Yahya were referred to trial, accused of manslaughter. After the Khanka Misdemeanor Court, then the appeal court, the Khanka appeal court sentenced the first defendant to five years, and the second, third and fourth defendants to a one year suspended sentence. The case is still pending in the Court of Cassation.

The first attempt by this report to recall the details of the Abu Zaabal deportation vehicle incident remains an opportunity for those interested, whether individuals or groups, to do more to investigate the truth and to search for new details that we have not yet reached. AFTE believes that its work on the Conscience and Memory project needs the support and help of individuals and others, in the hope that such crimes are not repeated in the future.

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Preface: Violence settles political disputes

The Muslim Brotherhood came to power in mid-2012, after the first presidential elections after the January 2011 revolution. At the time, the Muslim Brotherhood needed the support of secular political currents. On June 22, 2012, a meeting was held at the Vermont Hotel between representatives of secular currents that participated in the January 2011 revolution, Muslim Brotherhood candidate for the presidency at the time, Dr. Mohamed Morsi and some of his campaign leaders and leaders of the group. Political forces attending the meeting were skeptical about the seriousness of the military council in handing over power to civilians, in light of the delay in announcing the official results of the second round of elections, in which the competition was between Mohammed Morsi, the Brotherhood candidate, and Ahmed Shafiq, who was linked to the Mubarak regime.

According to the consensus reached by participants in the meeting, which the Muslim Brotherhood was supposed to abide with in case its candidate won the elections, a set of political principles were agreed on that ensure work with these secular currents and young people, who represent the bulk of the political movements that contributed to the protests in 2011. The new president, whose victory was officials announced on June 24 - just two days after the meeting - appeared ready to work with secular partners.

However, soon protests erupted against the performance of the president. After 100 days of Morsi’s arrival in the presidency, a group of political and popular parties and organizations organized the “Account Friday” activities in Tahrir Square and a number of governorates due to the lack of fulfillment of Morsi’s promises to release the imprisoned youth and the trial of symbols of the Mubarak regime. In response, the MB organized a million-man protest to denounce the acquittal of the defendants in the “Battle of the Came” [2 February 2011], which resulted in clashes that left damage and injured people.

The scenes of Islamic/secular polarization were escalating, especially when President Morsi issued the constitutional declaration on 21 November 2012. The National Salvation Front was formed following the constitutional declaration, where 35 political parties and movements announced the formation of the Front in November 2012, as an entity of secular groups rejecting the declaration, and to establish a leadership, the mission of which was to manage that political, popular and public phase. In the face of that sharp polarization between Islamic and secular currents, the coordinator of the Front, Mohamed El Baradei, said in a press interview: “Frankly, I would not be surprised then if the army entered the picture to exercise its responsibility to prevent chaos and protect the country, although this would have repercussions, nobody knows to which fate they would leads us« .

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The following month, violent clashes broke out between opponents and supporters of the deposed President Mohamed Morsi in the surroundings of the Etehadeya Palace on 5 December 2012, against the background of an attack by members of the Muslim Brotherhood against a sit-in of opponents in the vicinity of the palace, resulting in the killing of 5 people and injury of 446.

Thus, on 11 December 2012, the Ministry of Defense issued a call for a dialogue between political factions and the President of the Republic at the Air Defense House, but the meeting did not take place. Maj. Gen. Mohammed al-Asar, the then deputy defense minister, denied in televised statements the army’s involvement in politics, pointing to the existence of a legitimacy and democracy ruling the country. The Brotherhood and President Mohamed Morsi succeeded in passing the new constitution through a referendum held in mid-December 2012, despite widespread objections from secular currents. On December 25, 2012, the General Elections Committee announced a majority approval of the new constitution (63.8%), while 36.2% voted against.

In the first half of 2013, the opposition returned through a new political group that surpassed the Salvation Front formed the previous year. The formation of a mutiny (Tamarod) group was announced on April 26, 2013, which called for signatures to withdraw confidence from the president and hold early presidential elections. The movement announced the collection of 22 million signatures to withdraw confidence from Morsi, and also called upon signatories to rally in Tahrir Square, in front of the presidential palace and in all governorates on 30 June 2013, to announce the withdrawal of confidence from Mohamed Morsi and call for presidential elections.

Former president Morsi ignored these demands and refused to hold early presidential elections. In a famous speech that extended over two and a half hours on the anniversary of his ascent to power, Morsi described the opposition’s demands as absurd and called for dialogue and for the formation of a committee to amend the constitution and work towards national reconciliation, both of which were firmly rejected. In a press statement the salvation front announced its insistence on its demands and that Mohamed Morsi’s speech “reflected a clear inability to acknowledge the difficult reality that Egypt is experiencing because of his failure to run the country since he took office a year ago».

Three days before the June 30 demonstrations, the Brotherhood called for an emergency press conference at the conference center. During the conference, the inauguration of the Islamic National Alliance for Egypt, a group of Islamic parties and entities, was announced to reject calls for Morsi’s departure, and to support the rule of the MB against opponents through conferences, demonstrations and others. The name of the coalition was changed on the morning of Morsi’s ousting into the “National Alliance for the Support of Legitimacy”. For the second time in the same month, supporters of Morsi demonstrated on June 28 in Rabaa al-Adawiya Square in a million-strong rally of “legitimacy, a red line”, in his support against demonstrations expected at the end of the same month. By the end of the day they announced that they were entering an open

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sit-in in the square.

The rate of demonstrations and political demands increased amidst the president’s failure to reach an agreement with his opponents. At the sit-in of Rabaa al-Adawiya, Asim Abdul Majid, leader of El-Jama’a El-Islameya [Islamic Group], said that opposition forces opposed to the policies of President Mohamed Morsi “have put their heads under the guillotine and must now be trampled on”. At the same time various marches began in Cairo and the governorates in preparation for the upcoming June 30 demonstrations, resulting in clashes between supporters and opponents of the regime of Mohamed Morsi.

Millions of Egyptians went out on the set date time to demonstrate in Tahrir Square, in front of the Presidential Palace and in Egypt’s squares to demand the departure of Morsi, with the support of the state and its institutions, through messages about the importance of respecting the people’s choice and compliance with democracy, in addition to state voices attacking the rule of Morsi and the Brotherhood. After the day began to take shape in favor of the opposition, clashes between citizens and supporters of Morsi resulted in deaths and injuries. Offices of the Brotherhood were burned in Mokattam, Cairo. Clashes at the headquarters of the Muslim Brotherhood in Mokattam resulted in 10 deaths.

The Army Command announced in a statement on July 1, 2013 that in case the demands of the people were not met during this period, the armed forces will announce a roadmap for the future as well as procedures that it will supervise supervising. After the end of the ultimatum, on July 3, 2013, the then Defense Minister Abdel Fattah al-Sisi announced a road map that included the removal of Morsi, disabling the constitution and appointment of the head of the Supreme Constitutional Court, Adly Mansour, as interim president. This coincided with news of the disappearance of the ousted president in an unknown location, which caused great anger among Morsi supporters in Raba’a and Nahda squares, and the emergence of demonstrations in different areas denouncing his ousting.

The days following the ousting of Morsi witnessed clashes between supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood on the one hand and the security forces and some citizens on the other hand, the most prominent of which was the dispersion by army forces of a sit in of supporters of Morsi in front of the Republican Guard headquarters, who demanded to know the whereabouts of Morsi as well as his release, on July 5, 2013, which resulted in the killing of demonstrators on the pretext of attempting to storm a military facility.

The events of the Republican Guard represented the beginning of the use of state weapons against activities and protests organized by the Muslim Brotherhood and their allies. Undoubtedly, the legitimacy of the state’s monopoly on the exercise of force is linked to constitutional and legal standards, the most important of which is the protection of the right to life, which was not honored with a claim that the state is facing armed

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groups, and that in the midst of demonstrations and protests that were mainly political and involving civilians. Perhaps this is the most important development for understanding the events following the Republican killings, which made the summer of 2013 different from any other period in Egypt, more than two years after the outbreak of the January revolution. There is no doubt that the armed force possessed by the army is far superior to that of the police force, which had met various protests with tear gas and rubber bullets.

Thus began the use of violence through the weaponry of state institutions to resolve political conflicts and disputes. Events, in which victims fell among the ranks of Islamic demonstrators, were repeated. The demonstrations called for by El Sisi to authorize him and the army to confront what he called “potential terrorist groups” and the decision of the Council of Ministers authorizing the Minister of the Interior to prepare a plan to disperse the sit-ins in Raba’s and Nahda, resulted in escalation of tension and radicalization of tone on the platforms of Raba’a and Nahda, in addition to the insistence by Morsi supporters on their positions and the increasing numbers of supporters and protesters joining the two sit-ins in anticipation of their dispersion by authorities.

Media and public opinion circles were satisfied with the decision to disperse the sit-ins in Raba’a and Nahda, especially after rumors about the existence of weapons with protesters. On 14 August 2013, Egypt woke up to the worst crimes committed in Egypt in the modern era, after security forces carried out the decision to break the sit-in in Raba’a and Nahda during the early hours of the morning. About 12 hours later the scene revealed hundreds of deaths and injuries. While official reports estimated the deaths during the dispersion to be around 650 people, reports by the alliance supporting the ousted president estimated the number to amount to 1300 individuals. International human rights organizations spoke about the killing of about 1000 individuals on the day of dispersal.

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The Abu Zaabal prisoner transfer van

Four days after the dispersal of the Raba’a and Nahda sit-ins, a new crime was committed against 45 prisoners, who had not yet been interrogated nor indicted handcuffed inside a prison transfer van. News spread and some footage emerged of bodies as they arrived at the Zeinhom morgue, accompanied by a warning that the images might be disturbing. Most of the bodies were swollen, and the bodies were either red or black. In a statement on the same day, the Interior Ministry said that a group of members of the Muslim Brotherhood arrested after the dispersion of the sit-ins in Raba’a and Nahda were killed because of their attempt to escape from the prison transfer vehicle near the prison of Abu Zaabal in Qalubeya governorate.

The state of sharp political polarization left its mark on the choices of victims and their families, and on the magnitude of interest in the incident at the time it occurred. According to testimonies obtained by AFTE, most of the victims of the incident and their families belonging to the Islamic tendency refused to cooperate with lawyers from civil society organizations, and considered that their positions were in favor of the authority and the secular tendency one way or the other. Positions of some lawyers defending the right to demonstrate also varied, including refusal to defend any of those arrested from the two sit-ins, considering them to be terrorists belonging to the Islamic tendency. However, positions of some have changed slightly to defend members of the Islamic tendency in view of the various forms of violence against them after the dispersal of the sit-ins.

“The court sessions began and we started to attend. There were not many lawyers. Of course there was a large number of MB lawyers, who were apprehensive and did not know how to deal with us.. they were not sure if we were really supporting them or whether we were only playing an act, as if we are there only to pose as the human rights lawyers. At times I felt we were there because we were the nice human rights lawyers who are pretending to work.. as if we were not serious about working. But gradually we got used to that. Among those present were the lawyers of el Nadim, EIPR, Osama Mahdy came in his personal capacity and the lawyers of the Brotherhood”

Those were the words of human rights lawyer Maha Yucef about the first moments in the defense of victims of the Abu Zaabal transfer van and the impact of political polarization on the work of human rights defenders in her testimony to AFTE. She continues:

The first news about the incident came from the media, i.e. before there was a case. I learned what happened from the media and tried to contact families of the individuals or get to know the list of names or reach their families. This was very difficult. Some of the victims were from the Brotherhood, so they sought the help of MB lawyers or lawyers whom they trust or have known from before. They

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didn’t trust anybody; they didn’t think anybody could be supporting them, even from human rights organizations; they believed everybody was against them and that we are the civilian groups who are against the religious groups and that we shall definitely be against them, not with them, and that we are surely supporting the state against them. That is why they were very careful in dealing with us. I had a client, unfortunately I no longer remember the name, I might find his name in the files at the office, he was the first I had contact with, and he actually gave us power of attorney and we had started working on his case. Then later, in the middle of the legal process as soon as the case was referred to trial he sought MB lawyers, since they were the lawyers of the rest of the victims.”

On the impact of political polarization on the families of victims of Abu Zaabal transfer van incident, human rights lawyer Basma Zahran, in her testimony to AFTE, says:

Of course the Raba’a events had their impact on Abu Zaabal. What I understood later on was that Mohamed El Deeb himself was among the photographers who went down to take pictures of the incident for his personal interest. Then he disappeared. I don’t know if his family came to know when he disappeared or whether he was beaten or what was the occasion of his arrest. But he disappeared after Raba’a until the day of the incident of the prison transfer van, which came about three days after the chaos.. we began to hear about cars full of ice that came to preserve the bodies, and the bodies all over the ground.. I began to see the pictures of cars and the ice boxes.. either cars that usually transport meat, food or ice blocks..maybe I saw before those ice blocks for bodies awaiting autopsy.. but those cars were new to me.. they began after Raba’a.. the numbers were that huge.. we engaged with the transfer van incident.. how could anything like this happen.. were those people actually burnt?.. we were hit by a state of lack of comprehension.. how did it come to this?.. how did they burn?.. why didn’t the van itself burn?.. how could they burn and the van not?.. details that you had to think about when somebody comes to seek your help as a lawyer.. since the first moment there was utter confusion and tension with Raba’a still on our minds.. we as lawyers were very confused.. as lawyers we were unable to work.. of course there was the huge dispute about the right to life and the people who died in Raba’a.. that was not the root of the dispute.. the main dispute after Raba’a was whether or not we would work with the people arrested from Raba’a.. my only explanation was that this was a period of extreme confusion”

The question then was, what happened to these victims, and where was the truth? To the extent that some people had difficulty in imagining what happened to the victims of the Abu Zaabal transfer vehicle at the time the incident took place, the case file and the accounts of some of the survivors and families of victims provide us with details that bring us closer to understanding what happened, i.e. the story of those who were in the Abu Zaabal prisoner transfer van.

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The story.. How were they killed in the van?

Before moving…

On the evening of 17 August 2013, the East Cairo Sector - affiliated to the Ministry of Interior - contacted the chief of the Heliopolis police station, informing him to delegate his deputy, Lieutenant Colonel Amr Farouk, to lead the transfer defendants in the Raba’a case to the Abu Zaabal military prison the following day. The task of Lt. Col. Amr Farouk was to oversee the deportation of seven hundred and fifty-nine defendants of those in custody in cases No. 15899 for 2013, Nasr City’s I administrative directory, and No. 10465 for the year 2013, which is divided over several police departments in Cairo, in addition to supervising and leading the transfer of 45 defendants from the Heliopolis police station to Abu Zaabal prison. The chief of police immediately contacted his deputy to inform him of the East Sector notice, and that all facilities at the police station and requirements of the mission were at his disposal and that he is authorized to undertake all necessary measures and procedures and offered him to contact him in case he needed anything so that it can be made available.

At 6 am on August 18, the secretary at the Heliopolis police station told driver Hassan Samir Ali that the deputy director needed a driver for the large transfer vehicle. Hassan Samir does not know anything about that vehicle, because he is the driver of a small vehicle known as the “police box.” The driver went to the deputy officer to tell him that, according to his statements to the public prosecution: “I told the deputy director that I knew nothing about this car; I haven’t driven it before; don’t know what it contains; and look for the transfer driver. He told me there is no one else at the police station. Then, Amr Beih, head of the shift, suggested to the deputy that he would drive the van and that I would drive the police box, but the deputy refused.”

Hassan submitted to the deputy chief’s decision and carried out the orders, but he did not know, according to him, where the air hoods were located, or how they are operated. The mission team consisted of the deputy chief of police, four officers and eight security personnel. After the defendants entered the vehicle’s cage, the commander of the mission ordered the forces to move in direction of Abu Zaabal Military Prison. That was around 6:30 am.

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About the transfer van

The technical report, after the inspection of the transfer vehicle (Iveco C1565) stated that the vehicle can only accommodate a maximum of 24 defendants, based on the measurements of the vehicle’s internal container (cage), and those of the human body in various standing and sitting positions, to determine the maximum number of people that the cage can accommodate, according to international standards of the amount of air needed for a human being in waiting rooms, according to weather and environmental factors – hour by hour – inside and outside the cage during the transfer from the Heliopolis police station until the exit of defendants from the cage of the vehicle in Abu Zaabal prison. In this regard, victims’ testimonies showed that the vehicle’s capacity was not proportionate to the large number of defendants it was transferring.

Human rights lawyer, Basma Zahran in her testimony to AFTE, commenting on what she saw in the morgue, said:

“I don’t understand.. how can a person imagine his brother or son sitting in that tin box for 6 or seven hours, and after those six or seven hours gets burnt inside.. burnt inside a tin box.. I had to think about that seeing the bodies in the morgue.”

Mohamed Abdel Maboud, one of the survivors of the transfer van says:

“The day of the transfer was a Sunday. It began at about 5 a.m. they told us to be ready for transfer at 6 a.m. We were exactly 45 persons transferred from Heliopolis police station. 5 of us were defendants in one case and the other 40 in another. They first took the 40 into the car, and then we went to join them. There was no place for a single additional passenger. Even the 40 who were already inside were unable to stand properly. We told them that we are not able to get into the van and that the van is full. They said, no, this van can take more than this. He pushed us inside with a lot of force and then closed the door behind us. He squeezed everybody together and it was very difficult. We were standing in the van, with hardly any space to place our feet. We were standing on top of each other’s feet. The van started moving. As long as it was moving there was some oxygen inside, people were breathing. The big tragedy would be if the car stopped. The distance took between an hour and an hour and a half. It was almost 7 when we arrived in Abu Zaabal.”

Hussein Abdel-Al, a survivor of Abu Zaabal transfer van incident, explains the situation of detainees in the vehicle and the difficulty of breathing. Abdel-Al says:

“It was a very bitter experience. Exactly like a slow death. They began our transfer and counted the people who are to be transferred. We did not know where we were going. Starting 6 am the car was not big enough for the number of people to be transferred. But they squeezed us inside like cattle, not human beings. About 5 or 6 of us remained outside because they could not climb in. they pushed us

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inside and closed the door. The car took about an hour or an hour and a half until it reached its destination. People standing close to the ventilation hoods said we had arrived at Abu Zaabal military prison. The car stood in front of the prison. There was not a single breeze inside the cage. As long as the car was moving we did not have difficulty breathing. When we stopped it was very hot, it was August. People started finding it difficult to breathe. There was no air, no oxygen. Some of the people started feeling faint”

According to the case file reports, the inspection of the van cabin showed that the dimensions of the cabin were 202 cm x 370 cm, 180 cm high and 190 cm in the center (the roof of the cabin was convex) and the roof was fitted with two circular openings for ventilation with a diameter of 12 cm. There were six wired windows for ventilation 24 cm x 24 cm, three on each side of the cabin. There were also two seats attached to both sides of the box of width 40 cm and length 370 cm (i.e. along the length of the cabin). The back side of the cabin is for security and has a 62cm x 160 cm iron door separating them from the deportees. On the door is a wire window surrounded by a sliding door. When the door is pulled, the hole is completely closed.

Arriving at Abu Zaabal military prison

Abu Zaabal prison is a special prison for the execution of criminal and disciplinary penalties on police personnel, including rank and file, officers, guards and recruits. The prison is located in the Abu Zaabal prison area in Qlubeya governorate in Al-Khanka region, about 30 kilometers from Cairo. The prison warden describes it as a large area surrounded by an external wall and a public gate, secured by three uniformed individuals and an inspection person. Inside, there is a large empty area and in it a criminal investigation building belonging to the Prison Administration, then the actual prison building, surrounded by another wall, with four watch towers occupied by one recruit each. The inside the prison is secured by members of the police force appointed to prisons. The distance from the public gate to the Abu Zaabal military prison gate is approximately 700 meters.

The Heliopolis deportation vehicle arrived at 7:30 am and joined the convoy of transfer missions in front of the prison gate; it was no. 12 in the line. Officers went to sit by the Pergola next to the Deputy Chief’s office, which is about ten meters from the inner wall of the prison; security personnel remained by the transfer vehicles with the driver. “We are in a desert and the weather was very hot”, this was the reply by most officers and security personnel when talking about the weather condition to the prosecution. 45 individuals remained trapped in a cabin that can only accommodate a maximum of 24. They remained without sufficient ventilation and nonfunctioning air fans. At about 10 am, security guards heard voices of distress from the detainees in the van’s cabin, due to thirst, lack of ventilation and the heat inside.

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Abdul Aziz Rabie, a police sergeant who sat in the rear guard cabin of the transfer van vehicle, said:

“I heard the transferred defendants shout they were thirsty, they wanted to drink, that they were suffocating from the heat, that they were going to die, and that one of them had diabetes”.

The van driver explains the situation to the prosecution:

At 10 am the sun was high in the sky and it was very hot. We were in the desert. At about 10.30 there was strong banging inside the transfer cabin. I heard people inside shouting, this is not fair, we want to drink, we want to breathe, the car is airless and it is hot, please open the door. I went to the deputy chief and officers and informed them. they came with me and began to look for the key to the lock.. when they could not find the key to the lock, they broke it and opened the door and gave them water for about 15 minutes. I was standing beside the outer door of the front cabin and none of the defendants left the van. Then the deputy chief said, close the door again. I heard some of the detainees tell the deputy, leave the door open to let in some air because it is very hot. But he did not agree. He ordered his staff to get a handcuff and close the door. And they did. The defendants remained in the transfer cabin and I returned to mine.”

This story was confirmed by the officers and security guards during interrogations by the Public Prosecution. As for the stories of the survivors, the testimony of two of them stated that the transfer vehicle took between an hour to an hour and a half to reach its destination. At about 7:30 the car arrived at Abu Zaabal prison. Half an hour after arrival of the deportees, the level of oxygen inside the cabin began to decrease. When their screams for rescue went in vain, they decided to wait, since they were already inside the prison walls. The screams for rescue became louder after two hours, as the deportees began to drop on after the other between 10 and 11 am.

They were sitting laughing on their chairs and people were dying. People were squeezing their clothes to find water to drink.. they used up all their sweat.. you felt like you were standing in a pool of sweat.. I saw them in the van like one pile one on top of the other.. we told one of the soldiers standing outside.. someone called him and told him so-and-so has died. One of them was ill. He swore at him and said: so what if he is dead.

Mohamed Abdel Mabour, one of the survivors, describes the moments when the victims began to drop. He proceeds:

We were looking through the small wired windows and saw many cars inside the prison wall. All we hears was “in your turn” we had arrived at 7 inside the Abu Zaabal prison wall. Half an hour later we were running shot of oxygen. Some of us were about to faint. We shouted and screamed.. people are fainting.. somebody open the door.. somebody bring us water.. nobody responded.. people resisted

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and drew on their patience until two hours had passed.. after two hours people started to drop.. didn’t know if they were fainting or dying.. we began to shout more and bang on the door.. people were screaming.. it was the screaming of someone about to die.. they started to respond to us.. we told them people are dying.. he said, no problem, I want them to die, I don’t want any of them to live.. we asked him to bring us water.. he brought a bottle of water and began spraying the water through the small openings..people stretched out their hands to catch the water.. each trying to touch as much as he can.. people began to drop.. I was handcuffed to Dr. Abdel Moneim Mostafa.. after a while we asked for more water.. Hussein threw himself against the door and said, let them kill me.. give me some water, anything, I shall die anyway. They beat him and pushed him inside the door and closed it again.. with time you could see more people lying on top of each other, you could not know if they were dead or fainting.. almost everybody fainted.. I fainted for a while and woke up to the voice of Dr. Abdel Moneim, may he rest n peace, shouting: “we are Muslim Brothers, we are peaceful. I want someone to speak to me, to talk to me, this cannot go on, people have died”.. the response from outside was “swear at Dr. Mohamed Morsi”. We had among us people who were arrested from the street, not Muslim Brothers. They began to shout and swear.. everybody who could swear was swearing.

Hussein Adel Aal, another survivor, describes the pressure by security on those held inside the van:

People began to fall.. we screamed for help from the people outside.. open the doors so that we can breathe.. being us water.. No!.. some people are dying.. they began a silly game that has nothing to do with religion or even humanity.. they said swear at Dr. Morsi and we shall open the door.. some of the young people who were totally fed up began swearing at Dr. Morsi!.. ok, say that you are mere kids!.. some of the detainees said they were just kids.. the reply was “we do not deal with kids”.. Some of the young people began making speeches, saluting the revolution and singing. They told us either you shut up or we shall not open up. We banged at the door, we shouted, some cried.

Why was the door closed?

Everyone confirmed the high temperature and hot weather, and everyone also recognized the difficulty of breathing inside the van detention cabin under such circumstances and with that huge number. “The air was very hot and they were in a locked box,” said Sgt. Munir Hassan Asran, one of the defendants in the case describing the weather condition. Why then was the deputy chief fearful of leaving the van cabin door open, to the extent that he insists on locking it using a handcuff after breaking the lock because the key was lost? The reason for that extreme feat, according to security personnel, is the same reason that he gave the prosecution during his interrogation. He said “Because the outside prison wall has no security and because of the danger and importance of

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the mission.”

Let us contemplate the scene to identify the extent of validity of those fears.. the van is in a queue of 20 transfer missions, i.e. 20 transfer vans. So the van concerned has 8 further vans behind it. Next to the van stands its the security team, in a desert location. There is an outside wall guarded by 4 individuals according to statements by the prison warden to the prosecution. In addition, some of the missions, according to reports by the prosecution, opened the door of the cabin, and allowed some of the detainees to sit on the van’s steps.

Sgt. Muhammad al-Morsi Negm, one of the accused officers, said in response to a question by the Public Prosecution about the harm that could happen by leaving the locker’s door open: “No harm. But our deputy chief was too afraid, and maybe he saw something that we did not. All that we do is follow orders.”

The chief of Heliopolis police station does not agree with the way his deputy and the accompanying mission behaved. He says: “If I was heading the mission, I would have aired the van and got them out and surrounded them by a police cordon as long as we are inside the prison and handcuffed and I have as many forces as they had.”

Concerning the best conduct in those conditions of weather, ventilation, non-functioning fans and a large number of prisoners, Hazem Hamid Abdel Salam, head of the Department of Deportations and Trial Security says: “The easiest thing was to open the door of the car separating the guard cabin and the detention cabin immediately after arrival at prison.”

According to Sgt. Bahnas Khamis and Abdul Aziz Rabie, only some guards and prisoners requested the opening of the detention cabin to assist in ventilation under those difficult conditions. However, the deputy chief did not respond to the distress calls by the prisoners in the van box and locked the van door using prisoner handcuffs. The narratives here are not fundamentally different between the guards and officers on the one hand and survivors on the other, but they differ greatly regarding what happened after opening the door for the first time.

The dispute begins over the number of times the vehicle’s lockbox was opened for ventilation or drinking water, eventually leading to the killing of 37 prisoners.

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How many times was the door opened in six hours?

There are two answers to this question. The first is the answer given in the case by the deputy chief of Heliopolis police station and three officers on the mission. The second answer belongs to the survivor, two guards and the driver of the transfer van.

1- Narrative of the defendants

The deputy chief and supervisor of the mission said that the door was opened at 10 am, where prisoners were allowed to drink water. Then the door of the detention cabin was closed by two handcuffs removed from two of the detainees, in view of the breaking of the lock after the loss of the key. Later, the door was opened twice within about three hours. Officer, Mohamed Yahya, lieutenant in the Heliopolis police station and one of the defendants, says that the door was opened only twice, the first time at 9:30 am, and the second time about two hours later, in response to calls of distress by the transported prisoners. This was confirmed by the rest of the defendants, Sergeant Mounir Hassan Asran and Sergeant Mohamed Morsi, who said:

“.. after about another hour we opened the door to make them drink and we sprayed them with water again with the knowledge of the deputy chief. The key was with Islam and the deputy told him, let them drink then close the door. Then we went to sit under the pergola. The last time we went to see them was about 11.30.”

2- Narrative of survivors and some guards

Mostafa Elsayed Mohamed Ibrahim, one of the survivors says:

What happened this morning is that we moved from Heliopolis police station at about 6 am, we were about 45 individuals put in a lorry, we were very squeezed.. after about an hour we reached the Abu Zaabal military prison.. until we arrived at the prison we were all right.. after about an hour and a half older people with us began to drop.. we began to shout and bang on the door of the van so that they open the door to let in some air.. when the heat increased more people began to drop, one on top of the other because of the crowding.. someone opened the door of the van about 10 am and then closed it again”

That was the situation in the transfer van. Several survivors note that the door was only opened once, then closed, and was not opened again except at the time of delivering the prisoners. This was confirmed by Sgt. Bahnas Khamis and Sergeant Abdul Aziz Rabie, who said:

“We, as rank and file, have no authority about anything, we cannot act on our own.. with repeated complaints one of us would go to the officers and tell them

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the prisoners are hot and want water. They refused their request every time, except one single time throughout the day. It was about 10 or 11 am, and then nobody responded to them any more although each one of us would go and tell them the prisoners want to drink.”

Delivering the prisoners… what happened?

1- Narrative of the defendants

Upon arriving the van was stopped and left by the outer prison gate, guarded by the accompanying force of officers and rank and file. We met with Colonel Mohamed Anwar, warden of the Abu Zaabal military prison. While presenting the documents of the prisoners to him and ensuring they were complete so that we can deliver the prisoners, the van driver came to us and told us of an outburst by prisoners inside the car. We hurried outside and found the prisoners in a state of excitement inside the van and attempting to remove its internal door. When first lieutenant Mohamed Yehia officer at the Heliopolis police station with a number of personnel went to the van to examine the situation, and after the opened the door of the van, some of the prisoners attempted to pull him inside. The rest of the prisoners remained in a state of excitement trying to escape. The accompanying force, entrusted with securing the mission, together with the security forces in charge of other missions in front of the prison intervened quickly to control the situation. Some of them used personal deterrent gas through the side windows of the van until First Lieutenant and members of the accompanying force could be pulled out of the van and the door rapidly closed. The situation was controlled quietly. The incident resulted in the injury of First Lieutenant Mohamed Yehia from the Heliopolis police force with various bruises in addition to the injury of Sergeant Bahnas Khamis Bahnas (bruises on the forehead) and Sergeant Abdel Aziz Rabie Abdel Aziz (small cut wound in the forehead) in addition to damage to the internal door of the van cabin.. We then cordoned the van in preparation for the delivery of the prisoners. When we opened the van door we found a large number of prisoners were faint or in extreme exhaustion. We contacted the ambulance and summoned the prison doctor”

In his statements to the Public Prosecution, the deputy chief of the Heliopolis police station said, that after he managed to pull out Lieutenant Mohammed Yahya from being held by the prisoners:

We got nine defendants from inside the lorry and the rest of the defendants were sitting on the floor of the lorry in a state of fainting. The prison doctor came, and examined the 9 defendants and the remainder of the defendants inside the lorry and found that all of those inside the lorry were dead in addition to one of the nine taken out of the lorry, who died while receiving first aid by the prison doctor, and that 8 defendants remained alive. The prison doctor tried to rescue the rest of the

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defendants inside the lorry after getting them out of the lorry, and while he was trying to rescue them they died. Then two of the living defendants were in a bad health condition and were transferred to Al Khanka central hospital to receive treatment. This is what happened.”

This is the story recorded in the report of the Heliopolis police station by its deputy chief and the main defendant in the case. The deputy chief believes that the reason for the kidnapping of First Lieutenant Mohammad Yehya was his attempt to prevent the prisoners from escaping when they were trying to remove the internal door of the transfer van cabin. When Lieutenant Muhammad Yehya calmed them and opened the door, the prisoners kidnapped him and locked the door.

As for first lieutenant Mohammed Yehya’s account of the incident of kidnap he was subjected to, he says:

At about 1.30 pm, I was walking close by the van talking on the phone. I heard a very loud noise and agitation and banging inside the van, so I sent one of the rank and file to the deputy chief to investigate the situation. The deputy chief came out of the prison and moved towards me. Before opening the door he took away my gun so that I don’t open with a gun on me. I had the key to the handcuff, and opened the door to examine the situation. Suddenly they pulled me inside the van and closed the door while I was inside with them. They beat me and I was hearing a very loud noise coming from outside the van. After a while I smelled gas, that affected me and I started coughing strongly, my eyes were tearful and I could not stand on my feet. Then I didn’t feel anything and fainted and recovered only at night in a hospital. The following day I learned that people had died in the van. That is all I witnessed.”

Sergeant Mohammed al-Morsi Najm, a defendant in this case, says:

About 2 pm, it was the turn of our van to deliver the prisoners. At the time I was with Islam by the pergola. Suddenly many people gathered around our van in a state of chaos. I went with Islam to see what was happening. There were many people there and we could not reach the door of the van. I heard the deputy and the soldiers say that Mohamed Yehia was kidnapped inside the van, but we could not see anything. Suddenly self defense gas was sprayed in stupid amounts from the inside of the van through its windows. I saw a hand spraying self defense from the middle window, I think. But I don’t know who sprayed but it was very strong and I felt bad because of this gas, my mouth dried and my eyes dried. One of the soldiers took me to the toilet and I remained there for a while. I came out to the pergola and sat there because I was exhausted. There was a huge gathering by the van and I heard that they took Mohamed Yehia to hospital and that people inside the van had died, and I saw some of those in the van coming out alive. I was in a state of shock and I froze…then people from the ministry of interior came, I don’t know them, stood with us and asked me what happened. Most of the time they were standing with the commander of the mission.”

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What the inmates were asking for was only to be allowed to get out of the death box, where there was not enough ventilation, and where the temperature was very high. On this, Sergeant Bahnas Khamis Bahnas says: “I heard them saying: ‘Get us out and take us to prison. When is it our turn? Until when will this torture continue”.

Also contrary to the story by the deputy chief and the officers accused in the cases, was the story by police sergeant Abdul Aziz Rabie and Sergeant Bahnas Khamis Bahnas, who were responsible for guarding the door of the detention cabin. Before going to the prosecution to give his statement, he said that he and Sergeant Bahnas Khamis Bahnas were with the police chief and his deputy and the following conversation took place.

“the prison warden said, do you know what you will do? I replied: what shall we do? So he told Amr Beih take them and make them understand what they will do. Amr Beih took us aside inside the warden’s office and told us you will go to the prosecution and you will say that the prisoners pulled officer Mohamed Yehia inside the van cabin and that we tried to get him out (…) and gave us a copy of the minutes of the report to read. I didn’t know what we were going to say. I didn’t read it and I told myself “I shall say the truth, what will satisfy my conscience and God”

The report by the public prosecution concerning the hearing of Sgt. Abdul Aziz Rabie, it stated that “he broke into weeping in front of us during the hearing, so we calmed him down and asked him why he cried; he said he feared for himself and his life from harm and loss of his career if he disclosed the truth of what happened; we reassured him that it is the prosecution that is questioning him now in safety and secrecy; his exact words were ‘those people who died.. the reason for their death is the officers who were with us’”. After Sergeant Abdul Aziz Rabie stopped crying, he narrated what happened:

“What happened is that people died inside the cabin of suffocation, they were many, they were locked up and every two were handcuffed together. We were in a desert inside the prison from about 7.30 am until 2 pm, without ventilation, without water. And when it was our turn to get them out and deliver them to prison, we opened the door and found people lying on top of each other in a terrible scene.. seven of them were still alive and the rest were not breathing, but the way they looked made me feel they were dead and not just fainting”

Rabie describes the scene at the time of delivering the prisoners to the prison management:

About 10 minutes before the delivery, my colleague Bahnas went to Amr Beih and told him give me the key to the handcuff closing the door, so that I can unlock the handcuff as well as the handcuffs’ of the defendants so that they are ready at the time of delivery. We were the first in turn to deliver the prisoners. Amr Beih said no. we shall remove the handcuffs as they come done. And then told one of the rank and file with him to alert the prisoners to bring out anything of value to be kept in the safety box on his way into prison. This colleague went but could

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not figure out if anybody had replied to him. Then Officer Mohamed Yehia went to open the door to bring down the prisoners, but the door did not open. So I went with another couple of my colleagues, don’t remember who, and we kept pushing the door but it wouldn’t open. At the time many people gathered around the van from other missions. Someone said, bring a fire extinguisher, as a form of threat to the prisoners, because we thought they were pushing the door from the inside, sitting against it and not wanting us to open it. A strongly built man in civilian clothes came and said I shall push the door. He continued pushing but still the door did not open. He looked though the door window and I heard him say: they are piled on top of each other. Then someone from the prison, I think, came with an iron bar and tried to open the door but couldn’t. they then brought something they cuts through iron, not a drill, and worked on the hinges until we opened the door a little and someone went inside, maybe is it officer Mohamed Yehia, I don’t know. I don’t know what he did, maybe he was trying to make some space to open the door and he said, someone come help to bring them out. There were about 7 or 8 awake and those came out. After those came out I entered the cage to bring out the people inside. The door was not yet completely opened. I found that everybody inside was lying on top of each other and there was a very bad smell. I smelled something, after which I had difficulty breathing. WE began to disentangle them to bring them out through a half opened door. Everybody was helping. We carried the prisoners and laid them on the ground outside. We took about 10 people out. Carrying those people I felt they were dead and learned that the prison has refused to receive the dead, so we didn’t carry anybody any more. Then there was a great confusions. Nobody knew what to do. The vans which were behind us left and went to deliver somewhere else. Our van remained. I heard someone from prison say, put them again in the van and take them to the morgue. Others were saying, the ambulance will come and collect them. We remained like this for two hours until I saw generals and high ranks arrive and sit with Amr Beih in a room next to the pergola where officers used to sit. But I don’t know who they are. They were in civilian clothes, and came in military cars, they appeared old. Then I saw Amr Beih come towards us with all the rank and file and tell us, everyone will bear the responsibility of what happened today, and it is not our fault, we did not mean [them to die].. we want two of you to injure themselves and these are instruction. He had with him someone called Ramzi from the police station. He was present and he almost said the same thing like Amr Beih. He said, we want to help each other out. Ramzi told Bahnas and me, because we were the most senior, to injure ourselves according to instructions we heard. I said I won’t and Bahnas was hesitant. We felt the situation was grave and we are helpless people and worried about ourselves. Then Ramzi had something in his hand and hit each of us in the head. Bahnas and I were injured, and Amr Beih and Ramzi told us to go to the police station and ask for a transfer to hospital to issue a medical report. Bahnas and I left and we don’t know anything else, except that we learned that officer Mohamed Yehia and two of the rank and file, including Mohamed Shawki, were at hospital.

Sgt. Bahnas Khamis Bahnas talks about Lieutenant Mohammed Yehya and of the injuries sustained by him and Sergeant Abdul Aziz:

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“I and Abdul Aziz tried hard to pull the officer from inside, from their hands but we were unable to. I hit my head on the right side against the door and Abdel Aziz hit his forehead and I saw that he was bleeding so we left the van and were replaced by Mohamed Shawky and Munir. On my way out of the van I smelled something like gas but without smoke”.

Concerning claims by the deputy chief that the door was closed after the capture of First Lieutenant Mohammed Yehya inside the van, he says:

“Deputy chief Amr Beih was not by the door of the cabin when they pulled Officer Muhammad Yahya inside. He was standing below, by the outer door of the van and the door was not closed behind then. If the door had closed we wouldn’t have been able to open it and the officer would have died inside”.

2- Narrative of survivors

Mohamed Eid Salem, a survivor and the first to leave the van, says:

“More people began to drop and faint. We kept shouting and nobody cared. About 2 pm it was our turn to come down. They came to open the door so that we can climb down but they couldn’t open it because people had fallen behind the door and were not moving. A man in civilian clothes with two others began to forcefully push the door. I was the first one to come out. They told us mind those people sleeping on the floor so that you can come down. I began pushing those lying on the ground, but no one moved. About 5 people cam behind us and took us behind an iron gate inside prison.”

In front of the prosecution, all survivors confirmed this story. One of the survivors, Abdallah Ahmed Elsayed, noted that the officer who was trying to open the door thought that the prisoners were obstructing the door from inside. He started swearing at them; but after a while he was able to slightly open the door.

“Then one of the men outside sprayed something at us. We felt we were suffocating. Then we saw the door open slightly and I left with five others with me. We entered through the prison gate. There they sprayed us with water and I began to regain consciousness. And that is what happened.”

All survivors denied statements by the deputy chief and the defendants that the prisoners inside the van held First Lieutenant Mohamed Yehia captive or attacked him.

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The CS gas

Mohamed Abdel Maboud, a survivor, described the incident

“No, they died of suffocation.. died of suffocation.. they died inside the car of suffocation because of the increased heat.. the lack of oxygen inside the car.. the gas was sprayed at us during the last moments when we were coming down inside the prison.. I am one of the survivors, but I was affected by the gas and its smell.. they threw the gas.. sprayed it through the open windows of the van.. they didn’t open the van except after that.”

The CS gas is a type of tear gas. Preliminary examination of the victims as well as the medical reports indicated that most of the bodies were swollen. The faces were either red or black due to the suffocation caused by overcrowding and the firing of tear gas at them when they had been in the van for more than 6 hours. Survivors’ accounts, however, indicate that most of the victims began to fall between 11 am and 2 pm, and that they died in succession before the gas cylinder was thrown. According to accounts of the survivors, more victims fell after the cylinder was thrown through an opening of 10 to 20 cm made by security forces in the door of the van. That was during the last half hour, i.e. between 2 and 3 in the afternoon. 8 left the van alive, one of whom was taken to intensive care in view of his bad health condition and 36 were dead by the time the door of the transfer van was finally opened.

“By the end, close to 3 or 2 pm, after I regained consciousness, there were only 2 or 3 conscious people in the van other than me. Those were Hussein and Mohamed from Faqus. Mohamed Sayed had also fainted, but he was live. Abdallah Abu Amr had also fainted but still barely alive. Dr. Abdel Moneim had fainted. I kept breathing through his mouth and hit his chest to wake him up, but it was no good. Immediately after the van had entered prison so that they open for us and let us out. While they were opening we smelled gas and I kept coughing. I felt this was tear gas. The door had barely opened 10 cm, the people inside were dead and he was spraying tear gas at them. He pushed the door with his feet together with the soldiers to bring down those he saw were still alive. I tried hard to come down with Dr. Abdel Moneim but it was not possible. He opened the handcuff and pulled me out through those 10 cm. many people were injured because of this pushing and pulling through that small opening. They got us out and made us sit in a place that was far from the “reception area”, which you well know, where prisoners are beaten and insulted. They made us sit in a place about 50 m away from the van, and then began trying to bring out the rest.. both dead and alive. Before me went Hussein, Mohamed Abu Elsayed, Abdallah Abu Amr.. about 4 and I was the fifth. Then I saw Mostafa Abu Sakr come out. The six of us came out.. we could hardly walk and were falling.. after 5 minutes they were still unable to open the door because it opens to the inside and there were all those bodies inside.. 38 or 40 people dead on top of each other. They closed the place completely, and the door as well and brought something like a drill, or something that they used to cut the door and remove it completely to bring down the people. I saw them drag Dr. Abdel Moneim.. he was lying on the ground,

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then Dr. Mohamed El Deeb, a doctor from prison came to examine them, he kept pressing on his chest but he had died. When they realized he was dead, they were almost sure that all the rest have died as well. They took us immediately inside the prison.. the 6 of us who were conscious, so that we don’t learn what has happened. Later we did not know whether all the rest had died or not. We thought some of them might be dead and the others survived.. there were many ill people with us and some were older than 60 years.. we didn’t think everyone had died, we thought they had only fainted.”

That was the story of Mohamed Abdel Maboud, one of the survivors of the Abu Zaabal transfer van incident, describing the moments when security forces used tear gas. Hussein Abdel Aal, another survivor, describes the moments of opening the van door as follows:

“When they came to open the door, it was opening toward the inside.. but there were people who had fainted, close to death lying behind the door.. they told us remove the people behind the door or else we shall close again and will not open for you. We tried as hard as we could to lift them, but after all this effort and exhaustion and loss of water from our bodies nobody was able to lift anybody. We lifted three young people only a little, they were totally unconscious, but they were breathing. The line behind them were a group of young people, one on top of the other, totally unconscious and not even breathing.. I even hit with my free hand, which was not handcuffed, the person on top, may God forgive me.. I hit him about 4 or 5 times with my fist to make him move, but he didn’t. then they opened the door for us, about 15-20 cm wide, not large enough for a single person, but the person outside was pushing the door hard towards the inside.. the first one left and I took this opportunity to go down for fear they might close the door again.. I pushed my neck through the narrow opening.. the door closed over my neck.. I screamed that I was going to die.. he pushed the door and I threw myself outside.. I was the second person to leave the van.. of course the “reception” was there outside, one or two standing at the end of the steps, as soon as you come out they punch you on the back then hold you by the collar of your shirt or undershirt or your trousers and as if he is carrying a sack, would push you towards the outer gate of the prison, where we had arrived. 5 people left like this, then one followed and we became 6. The seventh had fainted so they took him to hospital and was kept at the ICU. He did not come to Abu Zaabal except at night. So we were 7, those who survived the van.”

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The prison administration.. a different narrative

“Until this moment we didn’t know who had died and who didn’t. I asked him, he was a doctor and our hands were tied together. I asked him, so he told me his name and then he got out a list, looked at the names then told me” I want to tell you something; everybody in the van died except the 7 or 8 who survived.”

Mohammed Abdel Maaboud, a survivor, talks about the moment, during his questioning by the prosecution, when he came to know that his colleagues in the transfer van were dead. The Abu Zaabal Prison Prosecution questioned the survivors about the incident. The survivors testified that they were surprised to find that a different story was told concerning the 9 hours they had lived through, a story that accuses them of trying to escape during their transfer and that an officer had tried stopping them from escape.

After that we were transferred to prison. It was one prison. We were brought to the prosecution. I was the first to be questioned. The prosecutor told me: you have attacked an officer and tried to escape. Then after he finished his questioning, he asked me: what happened. I told him what happened just as I am doing now. I told him, how could we escape in the surroundings of a prison that is just like an army camp, full of policemen? We were almost dead people, fainting, handcuffed with iron cuffs. Who could we attack an officer. That doesn’t make sense. Myself, I was the closest ot the people, I was almost paralyzed when I left the van, dehydrated, I wasn’t able to stand upright, I was crawling, not walking. He said, so that is it.

That was the testimony of Mohamed Abdel Maboud, one of the survivors, who was the first to be heard by the prosecution.

The Morgue

The period after the dispersion of the Raba’a and Nahda sit-in was the worst and most difficult in the Zeinhom morgue. Bodies of victims were brought in without sufficient space, and without adequate means to preserve the bodies, to the point that families resorted to fruit storage cars to preserve the bodies after the morgue was full. The bodies of the transfer van victims were transferred to the morgue the following morning. Families and friends went there to confirm the death of their relatives. Images and footage of bodies arriving at the morgue began to spread, accompanied with warnings of disturbing pictures. Testimonies of lawyers and relatives of victims indicate that the experience of seeing the bodies of victims in this incident was the most difficult. Although doctors and lawyers are used to seeing bodies inside the morgue in various incidents, the condition of those bodies was extremely bad. The difficulty is usually due to the difficulty of seeing few parts of the injured body. But in this case, testimonies

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indicate that most of the bodies were swollen and the faces were either red or black, to the extent that the families found difficulty in identifying the victims is difficult. The terrible condition of bodies made some believe that the bodies were set on fire and that they were torched. The face of Mohamed El Deeb was one of the few which were not severely disfigured like the rest, according to his brother Ahmed El Deeb.

Lawyer Osama El Mahdy recalls his journey inside the morgue, searching for the body of Sherief Seyam, one of the victims. He says:

I went to the morgue, it was not far away, about ten minutes or less from the location of my company where I was.. I went to the morgue.. at the beginning there were only a few people.. not many people yet.. that was about 7.30 in the morning.. for a while I tried to enter.. I was used to entering the morgue after the many incidents during the revolution where I went to the morgue.. after while, about an hour, I managed to enter the morgue.. I was alone, nobody was there from the workers or the doctors at the morgue.. at the beginning I had no idea how many were dead.. as soon as I entered I found bodies on the floor.. a worker had let me in then went away.. the bodies looked terrible .. when I entered they were completely blue, their abdomens were open.. usually when we enter the morgue to examine the bodies we would find them after autopsy.. I then saw the string they use to sew the bodies.. but I couldn’t see the inside of the bodies.. I didn’t understand.. had they been subject to autopsy or not.. there were three bodies as soon as I entered lying on the floor.. I asked the employer who let me in: where are the bodies. He said, here they are in front of you. I was shocked to learn that those bodies on the floor belonged to some of those who were in the Zbu Zaabal van. I asked him, are they only those three? He said no, proceed along the corridor and go where the real morgue refrigerators are. Of course the Abu Zaabal incident came a few days after the Raba’a sit-in dispersion, so the morgue didn’t have any space for more bodies. There were two huge cooler cars like the ones used for fruit and vegetables, someone had donated them and they were full of heaps of bodies”.

Osama El Mahdy continues his testimony, recalling the moment of identifying the body of Sherief Seyam

I went in and discovered a very large number of bodies.. at first I didn’t count the bodies.. my main objective really was to identify Sherif and see if he was there or not.. it was a very difficult day.. it seems I passed by Sherief but did not recognize him.. I spent a long time looking close at all the bodies.. I have seen many corpses before, but I had never seen anything like this.. I have seen terribly looking corpses of people who were shot or squashed or injured.. but at the end only the injured part would be disfigured.. the color of the skin would remain normal like our skin.. but in this case the bodies were blue.. I didn’t suspect that they were burnt because it was not the color of torched bodies.. not like bodies burnt with fire.. the bodies had their skin still, purple, with visible veins and capillaries.. that is why I didn’t identify Sherief.. also, this extreme bloating.. when I saw the first three bodies I thought they were of obese people.. but then

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I realized that all corpses were like this.. after searching again for two or three times I recognized Sherief.. His body was like that of most other bodies.. I also discovered that not all bodies were subjected to autopsy.. some bodies they opened up and could not stitch them closed again because of the distension, so most of the bodies were open from the chest down to the lower abdomen.. you could see their intestines.. Sherief was one of them.. I left the morgue.. I had not taken pictures of the bodies.. the truth is I had so many questions.. I wrote on twitter that I have seen the bodies and how they looked and I began to explain the truth of what I had seen.. of course there were various reactions.. but most of our colleagues asked me to go again and to take pictures of the bodies so that they can better evaluate the situation..It was a very difficult sight.. and the entrance was also difficult.. after several trials for 10 minutes I entered, took pictures and then posted them.. there were differing opinions and those differences continued for a long time.. some saying they were burnt.. others saying they were not.. I have seen people who were burnt and revived the burn.. they looked different from this.

Concerning the role of the pictures in drawing attention to the incident, El Mahdy says:

About half an hour of publishing the pictures, great many people got involved, whether or not they had a relation to the Muslim Brotherhood.. also many of our colleagues among the lawyers.. a colleague of mine came with a doctor and asked me to help him enter the morgue to see for himself.. I entered for the third time with the doctor.. he was not sure.. but he said that this was not a burn.. another possibility arose that this might be due to the putrefaction of the bodies.. I think what made him suggest this possibility was the time of year then, August, the height of summer and secondly, because the bodies were kept outside refrigerators.. I left the morgue and completed the procedures related to the burying of Sherief.. most of the families came from outside Cairo.. I think those from Cairo were two or three.. most of the rest came from outside Cairo and that is why their families had not yet arrived. I finished the papers and went to get my car to go to the funeral and the burial of Sherief.. but I collapsed and couldn’t make it to the funeral.”

Ahmed El Deeb was a relative of one of the victims. He went to the morgue, trying to identify the body of his brother, Mohamed El Deeb, who was in the Abu Zaabal transfer van. Ahmed El Deeb says:

My uncle called me and said come tomorrow, I have received information that tomorrow morning they will be in the morgue. I called my brothers. My brother told me to disconnect the satellite so that my mother wouldn’t see the news. They didn’t tell her anything. They said, let us wait until things calm down and we consider what we shall do. We shall tell her the following day. Let he sleep today in peace. My mother is very sensitive, she could have died on the spot learning that happened. The following morning I went with my uncle. My friends joined us there. We entered the morgue. I was still in disbelief, not sure, not wanting to be sure, not wanting to know the truth. All I want to know, all it wanted was

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to find that Mohamed was all rights. I went to the morgue window to know if my brother’s name was among the dead. In front of Zeinhom there were huge fridge cars, with lots of bodies. I asked, what is this? They told me those are the many bodies from Raba’a and Nahda, and every now and then people come, enter the cars to check if their relatives were among the dead. Anyway, they told me, yes the name of your brother is on the list. I asked, what exactly happened to them? They told me they died due to suffocation. Everybody has something to say, a different story and we didn’t know which was the truth. After a while they told us the bodies are being dissected to identify the cause of death, and they wanted us to sign a report before we see anything and before we see Mohamed. The report said they died of suffocation. I refused to sign the report and told the people there, we must first know the truth and what we are signing to. There were infiltrates in the crowd who kept saying let us get it done with, don’t keep thinking and searching, we just want the bodies before they are mishandled inside if we don’t take them. I was confused, felt alone and did not know should I sign even if I didn’t know anything, could they really mishandle the bodies and not give them to us. At the end I insisted that I must go in and see him first. I went in and I found a disaster. Something I had never seen, not even in horror movies. Thank God, Mohamed was not among the bodies that looked very horrible. His body was normal, and the color of his body was normal, but it was obvious that he was badly mistreated. Only Mohamed’s body and that of another man appeared normal.. the rest were swollen, blue, scorched skin and it was very clear they have been mishandled. I approached Mohamed’s body. I had just been praying not to find them, that there would be a mistake, just similar names and that he is not among the dead. Then I saw him. I fell to the ground by his side, trying to lift him, telling him ‘come with me, I don’t know what I shall tell mother, come with me’. I also kept talking about him to those surrounding me ‘this is my brother, who was never idle, who never stopped working, bring me my brother, this is not my brother’. I called a friend of mine who is a doctor. I told him to come and all I want from you is to know what happened. Don’t declare your profession, but look at him, examine him. I saw marks on his body, like cigarette burns, yes, burns, but I could not describe them. We asked about the report, they said he died like the rest of them, due to suffocation, they threw a gas canister at them and they died. I had a long way to travel, I had to take him to Beheira. I told my friend there are no other marks. It seemed my doctor friend was afraid I would make trouble and that they wouldn’t give us the body. He told me, there is nothing else on his body, except those small marks. I asked him so that are they? He said, please sign the report and let us go. He told me, if there was something major about the body we would have stayed and made a noise, but what we can see is an injury and small burns. I asked, is that torture? He said, we shall investigate that later. Let us take him now and then we shall file a lawsuit. I attended the washing of the body in the morgue. Some people working at the morgue said the bodies have been tortured, electrocuted. Then we travelled to Beheira. Thousands attended his funeral.

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Stages of litigation and description of the crime: narratives of survivors versus narrative of defendants

The various accounts of the Abu Zaabal transfer van incident also reflected on the course of litigation before the court. The legal debate over the nature of the crime that took place against the victims of the Abu Zaabal transfer vehicle may be a continuation of the investigation into the facts of what had happened; an extension of the stories of the victims. The court decision may support one narrative and ignore another. That is why this report documents what happened in court exactly as it did regarding the transfer to Abu Zaabal prison.

The question remains: What happened, after the crime was committed, during litigation?

To answer this, we need to address two aspects; the first concerning the stages of litigation, and aims to clarify and explain the stages of the case in Egyptian courts, including all parties involved in the usual stages of litigation in criminal cases such as the collection of evidence (police), investigation and prosecution (prosecution), and the three-stage judgment (first instance, appeal and revocation). The second presents and explains the legal dispute between the lawyers as civil plaintiffs on the one hand and the judiciary on the other as regards:

1- Description of the crime: Manslaughter or murder

2- The real cause of death: is it the inhalation of gas in the midst of extreme overcrowding in the cage, the heat and the lack of ventilation, or was it suffocation because of overcrowding and bad ventilation considering the heat, irrespective of the gas component. In that regard we present simplified legal concepts for non professionals regarding the difference between the two crimes and their definition in the penal code

1. Stages of litigation in the transfer van case

After the incident, a report was issued by the police and the judiciary resumed investigation in the case until it reached the Court of Cassation. On the day of the incident, the police made a report of the incident and forwarded it to the Khanka prosecution, which

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investigated the incident by taking statements from defendants, survivors, eyewitnesses from security personnel, as well as an expert engineer, a forensic specialist and the chemical laboratory expert. In addition, the prosecution also based its investigations on the medical reports issued by the morgue regarding the condition of the bodies of the deceased in the incident and the cause of death, as well as the report of the chemical laboratory. The prosecution also ordered an engineering expert to write a detailed report about the vehicle’s detainees’ cabin and the weather and climate conditions on the day of the incident, and to what extent the size of the cabin could accommodate the number of detainees held therein. These reports will be presented in detail in the next section of the report.

The prosecution referred the case to the Khanka Misdemeanors Court for consideration. Both Lt. Col. Amr Farouq, deputy chief of the Heliopolis police station, captain Ibrahim El Morsi, Lt. Islam Helmy and Lieutenant Mohammed Yahia were the defendants in the case. The crime of the incident was defined as one of manslaughter. The Khanka Court resumed its consideration of the case and accepted the intervention of civil plaintiffs, who called for a change in the registration and description of the crime from manslaughter to murder - as we will show later - and later claimed that the court of Misdemeanors was not the competent body to hear the case, but rather the criminal court. However, the Misdemeanor Court turned a blind eye to their request, completed hearing the case and issued its judgment on March 18, 2014 of a 10-year prison term for the deputy chief and one year suspended sentence for the remaining defendants.

The defendants appealed the verdict and the case was referred to the Khanka Misdemeanor Appeal Court, which ruled, on June 7, 2014, the annulment of ruling of first instance and acquittal of all defendants. This prompted the prosecution to appeal against the decision of the Appeal Court, and therefore the case was referred to the Court of Cassation, which after considering the appeal by the prosecution ruled for a retrial by the Court of Appeal and a reconsideration of the judgment. On August 13, 2015, the Court of Appeal ruled an ease of judgment against Amr Farouk to five years and a one year suspended sentence for the rest of the defendants.

The case was then referred to the Court of Cassation, which has not yet made its decision on the case. Therefore, the last sentence by the Court of Appeal is the last ruling by the Egyptian judiciary in relation to the case. The following is a simplified outline of the stages and sequence of litigation between the courts:

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Filing a police report By the police (ministry of interior),

Misr Elgadida Police station

By the general prosecution, El-Khanka o�ce

The papers transfered to the general prosecution

The papers transfered to the court

The Accused appealed the

decision

The general prosecutor appealed

the decision

The case returned to the appeal court

The case transferred to the courtof cassation

Investigating the incident

Court Rulings in the incident

El-Khanka misdemeanourprimary Court

El-Khanka misdemeanourappeal Court

El-Khanka misdemeanourappeal Court

2

3

1

2

1

5

4

3

Experts reports Testimonies

1.Testionmies (survivors, security o�cers)2.The accused 3.The Experts (Engineering expert, Foren-sic ecpert, chemical lab expert)

1.Engineering expert, 2.Forensic expert, 3.chemical lab expert

The ruling: 10 years in prison for Leuitenit Oman Farouk, and a suspended year imprison for each of Ibrahim Al-mursi, Islam Abdulfatah, Mohamed Yehia (March 2014)

The Ruling: reducing the sentence to 5 years in prison for Lieutenant Omar Farouk and approving the sentence of Ibrahim Al-mursi, Islam Abd El-fatah, Mohamed Yehia of a suspended year imprison

The Ruling: Ordering the court of appeal to review the case (March 2015)

The ruling: innocence of the accused (June 2014)

The Ruling is not issued yet

Court of cassation

Court of Cassation

After the incident, a police report was made and �led by Lieutenant Omar Farouq. Following the stages of litigation, the Egyptian Judiciary investigated it where it �nally reached the court of cassation. The following graph illustrates the stages of litigation followed in this process.

Stages of litigation

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2. Accurate description of the crime.. Manslaughter versus premeditated murder

The general definition of the crime of homicide must be discussed here: It is every assault committed by a human being on another person resulting in his death. This definition includes both murder and manslaughter. Intentional killing is regulated by the Penal Code under Articles 230 and 234, as follows: “Anyone who intentionally kills a person with intent and forethought shall be punished with death. If the murder is committed without malice and forethought, the penalty is hard labor. However, the perpetrator of such a crime shall be sentenced to death if the crime was preceded, associated or followed by another crime, and if the intention of the crime or their partners is to escape or to avoid the penalty the sentence would be the death penalty or hard labor.

On the other hand, the Penal Code regulates manslaughter under Article 238, and defines it as follows: “Whoever caused in error the death of another person, due to negligence, impulsivity, carelessness or failure to comply with laws, decrees, regulations and systems, shall be punished by imprisonment for a period not less than six months and/or a fine of no more than 200 pounds. The penalty would be imprisonment for a period between one and five years and/or a fine between one hundred to five hundred pounds, if the crime is committed as a result of serious breach of duties of the offender’s job or profession, or if he was under the influence of alcohol or narcotic at the time of committing the error that resulted in death, or refrained from helping or asking for help for the victim, although capable thereof. The penalty shall be imprisonment between one and seven years if the act resulted in the death of more than three persons. If there is a circumstance other than those set out in the preceding paragraph, the penalty shall be imprisonment for a period between one and ten years. “

Both murder and manslaughter have conditions and components, on which courts and prosecutors rely, to describe the crime in a way that constitutes the base for the punishment of the criminal act. Murder and manslaughter share a common condition and one component. The condition they share is that the object of murder is a living person. The component they share is what is called the “physical component”, which we shall describe below. The component that characterizes premeditated murder is called “the moral component.»

The physical component in both manslaughter and premeditated murder is divided into three sub-components: the criminal act, the result, and the causal relationship between the act and the result. The moral component, exclusive in premeditated murder, means the murderer has one of two types of intent: either direct or indirect (probable). This decision on this component is left to the opinion and discretion of the Court. The following is a simplified sketch showing the conditions and elements of the murder:

Filing a police report By the police (ministry of interior),

Misr Elgadida Police station

By the general prosecution, El-Khanka o�ce

The papers transfered to the general prosecution

The papers transfered to the court

The Accused appealed the

decision

The general prosecutor appealed

the decision

The case returned to the appeal court

The case transferred to the courtof cassation

Investigating the incident

Court Rulings in the incident

El-Khanka misdemeanourprimary Court

El-Khanka misdemeanourappeal Court

El-Khanka misdemeanourappeal Court

2

3

1

2

1

5

4

3

Experts reports Testimonies

1.Testionmies (survivors, security o�cers)2.The accused 3.The Experts (Engineering expert, Foren-sic ecpert, chemical lab expert)

1.Engineering expert, 2.Forensic expert, 3.chemical lab expert

The ruling: 10 years in prison for Leuitenit Oman Farouk, and a suspended year imprison for each of Ibrahim Al-mursi, Islam Abdulfatah, Mohamed Yehia (March 2014)

The Ruling: reducing the sentence to 5 years in prison for Lieutenant Omar Farouk and approving the sentence of Ibrahim Al-mursi, Islam Abd El-fatah, Mohamed Yehia of a suspended year imprison

The Ruling: Ordering the court of appeal to review the case (March 2015)

The ruling: innocence of the accused (June 2014)

The Ruling is not issued yet

Court of cassation

Court of Cassation

After the incident, a police report was made and �led by Lieutenant Omar Farouq. Following the stages of litigation, the Egyptian Judiciary investigated it where it �nally reached the court of cassation. The following graph illustrates the stages of litigation followed in this process.

Stages of litigation

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The Elements and conditions of Homicide Crimes

Homicide: is any harm/assault from one human to another human that causes the death of(the later. This de�nition includes both kinds of homicide (Murder, and manslaughter

where the criminal expects that his actions ‘might’ lead to the death of the deceased, and does not necessarily desire his/her death

where the criminal expects that his actions would lead ‘directly’ to the death of the deceased and desires his/her death

That the action ‘caused’ the death of a human (not another accompanying action or cause that preceded or came after that action)

That the result of the afore mentioned action was death (not injury for example)

That the criminal made an ‘action’ -or refrained from one- which lead to the killing of a human being

Homicide is of two kinds (Murder and manslaughter)

Elements of Murder

material elements

direct intent

Result Criminal activityCausality

indirect intent (plausible)

material elements

Elements of Manslaughter

non- material elements (intent)

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There is no doubt that what happened in the transfer vehicle was homicide. But what kind of homicide was it? Was it manslaughter? Or does its criminal description amount to premeditated murder? The prosecution adopted the view that it act was manslaughter. While some civil rights claimants claimed that what happened in that incident was premeditated murder, based on the availability of probable intent. Also, the prosecution and some of the plaintiffs disagreed on the cause of death. The prosecution adopted the forensic opinion that the cause of death was suffocation asphyxia due to inhalation of CS gas under adverse weather and overcrowding conditions. Others believe that the cause of death was mainly overcrowding, in view of the narrowness of the space and the prevailing weather and climate conditions.

The prosecution’s opinion was that the killing was caused by gas inhalation, which was launched by an unknown person. The main killer in that case is not known. Since any crime is personal, the responsibility of the colonel and the criminal security team was not a component of premeditated murder, and so the crime was defined as one of manslaughter as a result of negligence. On the other hand, the view of lawyers of El Nadeem Center and Hisham Mubarak, the plaintiffs according to authorizations by families of the victims, was that this homicide amounts to premeditated murder, since it fulfills one of the conditions of one type of intent: the probable intent, which, as explained before, constitutes the main difference between premeditated murder and manslaughter. In their memo to the court they said:

«…. In his book ‘Interpretation of the penal code, special section, p. 44, Dr. Fathi Sorour wrote: Probable intent assumes that the offender aimed to achieve a certain result, which may be legitimate in itself, but he has predicted the possibility or probability of death of a person as a result, and still continues in his act approving its results and accepting this probability. In this case probable intent amounts to direct intent and the offender is to be tried for premeditated murder. In that regard the Court of Cassation defines probable intent as a secondary intention of the same perpetrator and his power, where he expects his act to cause the same result as in premeditated murder, while indifferent towards the occurrence or non occurrence of the result, which means he accepts its occurrence. Thus in premeditated murder the probable intent must be satisfied that the offender had predicted the death of the victim as a result of his action, and accepts and is satisfied with this result”. However, the Court did concur with their requests to change the registration and description of the crime from manslaughter to premeditated murder according to their claims.

Lawyers were of the opinion that the killing was caused by suffocation due to the poor ventilation of the van and overcrowding of prisoners. Thus, the description of the criminal liability of the colonel and the insurance team would change to premeditated murder, because the party that caused the overcrowding and refused ventilation was the security team. According to lawyers, death occurred before the gas was sprayed. Lawyers from the Muslim Brotherhood adopted this narrative, based on views of other doctors, as follows:

The Elements and conditions of Homicide Crimes

Homicide: is any harm/assault from one human to another human that causes the death of(the later. This de�nition includes both kinds of homicide (Murder, and manslaughter

where the criminal expects that his actions ‘might’ lead to the death of the deceased, and does not necessarily desire his/her death

where the criminal expects that his actions would lead ‘directly’ to the death of the deceased and desires his/her death

That the action ‘caused’ the death of a human (not another accompanying action or cause that preceded or came after that action)

That the result of the afore mentioned action was death (not injury for example)

That the criminal made an ‘action’ -or refrained from one- which lead to the killing of a human being

Homicide is of two kinds (Murder and manslaughter)

Elements of Murder

material elements

direct intent

Result Criminal activityCausality

indirect intent (plausible)

material elements

Elements of Manslaughter

non- material elements (intent)

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“My view is that death occurred before the spray of gas because for rigor mortis to occur, it needs hours, more than 8 hours, and under some natural conditions needs about 36 hours. If we say that they have been transferred from their place of detention to prison at 7 am on 18 August, i.e. very hot weather, about 44o, and remained inside the van in a tight badly ventilated narrow space, even without gas being sprayed, will definitely lead to suffocation. Suffocation happens when cells do not receive oxygen and when oxygen is replaced by poisonous gases that bind to red blood cells, which normally carry the oxygen. Instead of carrying oxygen, they come to carry those gases and thus are highly poisoned, and cause organ damage that leads to death. So, even if gas was not sprayed, and they were kept for that long, the amount of oxygen must decrease because a human being inhaled about half a liter of oxygen and exhales carbon dioxide. All those 500 ml of oxygen become carbon dioxide. Imagine those people exhaling carbon dioxide in that narrow space. After a while they would be inhaling carbon dioxide. Suffocation will definitely follow even if they are not exposed to the gas. Although all reports confirm that the main cause of death was the inhalation by prisoners of gas, the same reports indicate that some of the victims have been dead for more than 20 hours, that is before the spray of gas. “

Some testimonies provided by the survivors negated the shooting or spraying of teargas, moreover some said that they did not see any teargas smoke. Even though some testimonies confirmed that their members felt a burning sensation in their eyes, and others mentioned they were sprayed by a phosphoric element with a nasty smell, nonetheless those testimonies verily stated that such spraying happened while they were coming out of the police cart. Which means it was three hours after the victims fell dead or faint.

No doubt that there are indicators that may lead the investigator to consider this hypothesis, including:

1- Some of the survivors’ statements denied that any gas was sprayed in the first place. They also denied seeing its smoke. Although some confirmed a burning sensation in the eyes, and others said that they had been sprayed with a phosphoric, foul-smelling liquid, they stated that this happened while they were coming out of the vehicle, that is three hours after victims began to fall (either due to fainting or death)

Immediately before I left the vehicle, something hit me in the face, in my forehead, it had a foul smell.. it didn’t hurt me or anything.. when I left the van I wiped it with my hand and brought it close to my eyes and nose to see it.. it had vanished.. it was a phosphoric material but of a foul smell.. it was not a canister.. it was something like gas under pressure.. I mean it had the same effect and the same smell like gas.. I was coughing hard before I stepped out of the vehicle.

2- Medical reports that concluded that the cause of death is suffocation asphyxia due to inhalation of CS gas were issued before the chemical laboratory report,

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which determined that the substance was CS gas, which raises questions about the validity of the medical report and the chemical laboratory, and whether the reports might have been doctored.

“Another strange observation that threw suspicion on the contents of the forensic report, is that the case file includes information that the forensic reports were based on chemical lab reports, which had not yet been issued. The chemical lab reports are dated the 25 August 2013 and mention that they have examined a specimen and found that it had CS gas, which is a type of tear gas. The forensic reports on the other hand, were dated 21 August 2013, that is five days before the release of the chemical lab report. The normal thing is that the forensic report would come after the chemical lab report, because it is assumed that the final forensic report primarily depends on the chemical report in addition to the description of the autopsy. This proves that the forensic reports were ready before the results of the chemical report were issued. This indicates that some circumvention happened to produce a convenient report to drive the court in a certain direction: that the cause of death was the inhalation of tear gas.”

Although this dispute will not affect the concrete legal description of the incident; for lack of evidence of intent, still it is important to take this proof into consideration to disclose the truth of the incident and to make it available to the families of victims and society in general.

The details of the incident and the contradictions between the narratives of survivors and those of the defendants would remain incomplete, without a return to the information and legal proceedings reports, which provide a better opportunity to understand the accounts presented in the report, especially the debate around the cause of death of victims.

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From the case file: Information and reports

The lawsuit related to the Abu Zaabal transfer van incident includes important testimonies and reports, which help to understand the accounts of survivors and victims’ families. Here we review this information, which includes names of victims, names of the defendants, the forensic reports and the technical engineer report.

Basic information

Case number: 5144/2013, administrative, Khanka

Names of victims killed in the incident

1. Gamal Abdel Rahman Mohamed Abdel Rahim - Cairo,

2. Hisham Azzam Hafez, Kaliobeya,

3. Rafiq Mohammed Ibrahim Abdul Ghani - Al Gharbia,

4. Reda Sayed Ahmed El Sayed - El Sharkeya,

5. Shukri Ibrahim Saad - Cairo,

6. Mohamed Ismail Mohamed Saleh - Beheira,

7. Adel Abdel Shafi Abdel Hafez - El Qalioubeya,

8. Walid Al-Sayed Al-Najjar, Alexandria,

9. Abu Talib Abdel Gawad Soliman - El Sharkeya,

10. Mohammed Shehata Ismail - Beheira,

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11. Sherif Gamal Mohamed Siam - Cairo,

12. Ahmed Ibrahim Kamel Hamzawy - El Gharbeya,

13. Mahmoud Abdullah Mohammed Ali - Fayoum,

14. Faraj Faraj, Fayoum,

15. Ibrahim Mohammed Ibrahim Al Dahshan – El Sharkeya,

16. Mamdouh Sayed Abdullah - Giza,

17. Safwat Ahmed Abdullah - El Menia,

18. Mohamed Hassan El Sayed Ahmed - Dakahlia,

19. Ali Mohanna Abu Khader, Dakahlia,

20. Hassan Ibrahim Kurdi Mohammed - El Sharkeya,

21. Ahmed Ibrahim Kurdy - El Sharkeya,

22. Mostafa Mohamed Abdel Salam Mohamed, El Sharkeya,

23. Tarek Mohamed Hamed, Giza,

24. Sayed Barakat Shaaban - El Fayoum,

25. Mansour Abdel Tawab Abbas - El Fayoum,

26. Ahmed Shaaban Ragab, El Fayoum,

27. Ahmed Khamis Mohamed, El Fayoum,

28. Sayed Gomaa Eissa, El Fayoum,

29. Mohamed Ramzy Abd Allah Khalil - Cairo,

30. Mohamed Tawfiq Soliman - Cairo,

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31. Ahmed Mohamed Ragab Mandour, El Qalioubeya,

32. Alaa El Din Hassan Issa - Cairo,

33. Mahdi Mahmoud Ahedi - Beni Suef,

34. Mohamed Abdel Magid Mahmoud Ibrahim - El Beheira,

35. Talaat Abdel Azim Ali - Sohag,

36. Abdel Moneim Mohamed Mostafa, El Sharqeya,

37. Mostafa Mohamed Mostafa - El Sharkeya.

Names of defendants

1. Lt. Col. Amr Farouk, Deputy Director of the New Egypt Department,

2. Captain Ibrahim Al-Mursi

3. Lieutenant Islam Hilmi

4. Lieutenant Mohammed Yahya

Medical and chemical lab report

The case file includes 37 medical reports, dated between 18-27 August. Each report detailed the condition of each of the bodies that died in the transfer van prisoners’ cabin. Each report consisted of:

1- Photocopy of the memo by the prosecution

2- External examination of the body

3- Autopsy of the head, face, chest and abdomen

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4- Summary of the chemical report

5- Forensic opinion regarding the cause of death

The case file did not contain medical reports of surviving detainees The following is a table listing the names of those who were subject to autopsies, along with the numbers of their reports - AFTE was not able to obtain the numbers of 7 reports - the date of issue of the report and the opinion of the forensic doctor on the cause of death, which was the same in all reports: Suffocation asphyxia as a result of GAS CS (chlorobenzalmalononitrile) known to cause congestion of the mucosal lining of the respiratory tract and the beginning of inflammatory reactions, eventually resulting in obstruction of respiratory passages.

As for the report of the chemical lab, the report stated that the samples it received contained CS Gas (0- chlorobenzalmalononitrile), a type of tear gas. The Chemical Laboratory reports were dated 26 August 2013, that is after the issuance of 6 medical reports, dated 21 August 2013. It is noteworthy that the same chemical laboratory results were reported five days before it was issued. In addition, there are 6 other medical reports of unknown date, with the same reference to the chemical laboratory report. Medical reports are supposed to be issued after the chemical laboratory report especially that they confirmed that death was caused by exposure to gas, which was “revealed” by the chemical lab reports. How did the forensic doctor conclude that the cause of death was suffocation due to tear gas before receiving the chemical lab report?

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No Report no. Name Forensic report1 Mahmoud Sayed Abdullah Hussein

Cause of death in all cases: Suffocation asphyxia as a result of GAS CS(chlorobenzal- malononitrile) known to cause congestion of the mucosal lining of the respiratory tract and the beginning of inflammatory reactions, eventually resulting in obstruction of respiratorypassages

2 Walid Al Sayed Mohammed Al - Najjar3 Abu Talib Abdul Gawad Soliman Abdallah4 Saeed Juma Issa Ibrahim5 Reza El Sayed Ahmed El Sayed6 1067/2013 Ali Mhanna Ali Abu Khudair7 1068/2013 Mostafa Mohamed Abdel Salam Ahmed8 1244/2013 Ahmed Ibrahim Kamel Hamraoui9 1245/2013 Alaa El Din Hussein Issa Ahmed

10 1246/2013 Hassan Ibrahim Kurdi Mohammed11 1247/2013 Rafik Mohammed Ibrahim Abdul Ghani12 1248/2013 Ibrahim Mohammed Ibrahim Dahshan13 1249/2013 Mohammed Abdul Majid Ibrahim Al - Deeb14 1250/2013 Ahmed Tawfiq Suleiman Abdul Fattah15 1251/2013 Hisham Abu Azzam Hafez Ahmed Shaddad16 1252/2013 Sayed Barakat Shaaban Ahmed17 1254/2013 Mohammed Ramzi Abdullah Khalil18 1274/2013 Mohamed Ismail Mohamed Mesbah19 1255/2013 Ahmed Ragab Ahmed Hussein20 1256/2013 Mahmoud Abdullah Mohammed Ali21 1257/2013 Ahmed Shaaban Rajab Mohammed22 1258/2013 Abdel Moneim Mohamed Mostafa Hassanein23 1259/2013 Sherif Jamal Mohammed Siam24 1260/2013 Tariq Mohammed Hamid Mohammed25 1261/2013 Adel Abdel Shafi Abdel Hafez Al Rayes26 1262/2013 Safwat Ahmed Abdullah27 1265/2013 Gamal Abdel Rahman Mohamed Abdel Rahman28 1266/2013 Faraj Faraj Mohammed29 1267/2013 Talaat Abdel Azim Ali Abdel Rahim30 1268/2013 Mohamed Hassan Sayed Ahmed31 1269/2013 Mohammed Shehata Ismail Abu Gharara32 1272/2013 Mehdi Mahmoud Mahdi Sayed33 1273/2013 Mansour Abdel Tawab Abbas Saad34 Ahmed Mohamed Ragab35 1314/2013 Ahmed Ibrahim Al Kurdi Mohammed36 1315/2013 Ahmed Khamis Mohammed Ahmed37 5144/2013 Shukri Ibrahim Badr Saad

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Technical report

The case file included an “engineering report” of the transfer vehicle, which transferred the victims to Abu Zaabal prison. The report was prepared by Engineer/ Sameh Fathallah Al-Safti. The report was commissioned by a decision of the Attorney-General at the Technical Office of the Public Prosecutor dated 25/8/2013. The report aims to “determine whether the vehicle was suitable for the transfer of this number (45 individuals), and their stay inside the detention cabin for a long time considering the surrounding weather and environmental conditions ... and indicating the numbers that the van could transfer considering the space, capacity, ventilation and surrounding conditions».

The report included detailed analyzes including: 1) Shape and internal dimensions of the vehicle’s cabin; 2) standard measurements of the human body in the various standing and sitting positions to decide the maximum number of individuals that can be held in the cabin; 3) the maximum number of individuals in the cabin according to the international measurements of the volume of air required by a human being in waiting rooms by calculating the weather environment conditions - hour by hour - inside and outside the cabin during the transfer from the Heliopolis police station until the exit of prisoners in the cabin at Abu Zaabal prison. The analysis included monitoring of the temperature and wind speed.

Based on these measurements, the maximum capacity of people in the cabin was found to be 24 persons, where the cabin cannot accommodate more than 24 people (16 on the seats and 8 people sitting on the ground), according to the cabin’s dimensions in relation to international measurements of the human body. As for human needs for air, the report showed that the amount of air inside the cabin is sufficient only for 26 people, that is 19 people less than those actually transferred.

The report concluded that the vehicle in question was not in accordance with international standards, to transfer the 45 persons from the police station of Heliopolis to Abu Zaabal Military Prison, considering weather, temperature and humidity conditions on 18 August 2013, from 7:30 am until 1:30 pm of the same day.

The following is a breakdown of the “technical” information included in the technical report, which led to the report’s conclusion, in order to understand survivors’ testimonies and to show that suffocation was not necessarily due to the gas fired, but more likely due to air scarcity and lack of ventilation.

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1. Van measurements

The report included detailed description of the dimensions of the following:

1- Driver’s cabin from the outside

2- The front, right, left and back of the detainees cabin both from inside and outside.

Examination of the transfer cabin of the vehicle showed that the dimensions of the cabin was 202 cm x 370 cm, 180 cm high and 190 cm in the middle of the box (the ceiling was curved). The ceiling was also equipped with two circular openings with a 12 cm diameter window, in addition to six ventilation windows, three on each side, 24 cm x 24 cm. There are two seats attached to both sides of the cabin, 40 cm wide and 370 cm long (i.e. same length as the cabin). The back side of the cabin is for security men, and has a 62 x 160 cm iron door separating them from the deportees. The door has a wired window with a sliding door. Pulling this sliding door the opening is completely closed.

2. Maximum number of persons in the cabin according to body measurements

As for the space that should be available for the human body, the report used international sources (Ernst Neufert Architects data and Time – saver standards for Residential Development). According to those sources the average width of a sitting human being on a seat is 46 cm. Accordingly, the average number of people seated in the cabin is 8 individuals per seat on each side, to a total of 16 individuals. Subtracting 80 cm (width of the two seats) from the width of the vehicle, the remaining space (between the two seats) would be 122 cm. The report mentioned that the remaining space in the middle of the cabin could accommodate 8 individuals sitting on the ground of the vehicle, according to international standards, which set the average dimensions of a person sitting on the ground is 87.5 x 62.5 cm. Thus the maximum number to be held in the cabin would be 16 persons on the seats, 8 persons on the ground = maximum 24 persons.

3. Maximum number of persons in the cabin according to international standards for amount of air needed by a person in waiting rooms.

With regard to the maximum number of persons to be committed within the cabin, according to the amount of air required per person, the report stated that the air intake within the cabin was sufficient for 26 persons only, which is 19 persons less than the number of persons held in the transfer van. The report based its estimates on book “Humans and Energy”, which shows that the minimum amount of air required for humans in waiting rooms is between 25 and 35 cubic meters per hour. It also depended on measurements of the flow of air through the ventilation windows in the cabin, the temperature and the wind direction during the hours of spent by the victims in the vehicle.

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Conclusion

Perhaps we are now faced with many intertwined details, in part based on oral archiving of testimonies of lawyers and victims, who have lived through one aspect the story, and in part official investigations.. Various reports were provided by parties and experts to Court, and a defense of victims that tried to honor the narrative of the survivors, in the hope that the court would take them into consideration. What can we conclude at the end of this report? What do we need for later?

Through its work on the Consciousness and Memory project, AFTE has come to believe that the effort required to document human rights violations, especially violations of the right to life, cannot be borne by one institution or group only. Therefore, this report addressing the Abu Zaabal prisoner transfer van, a first attempt, needs others to take it further with more research and investigation, which could lead to information and testimonies that are as yet not available. This endeavor enhances the ability of sectors of society to raise awareness regarding these widespread violations, which took place during major political events and transformations in Egypt over the past years.

This report is not oblivious of the climate of Islamic/secular polarization that constituted the broader context for the use of violence and the great transformation witnessed by Egypt, where official state institutions rushed to excessive use of violence, without any consideration for the rule of law or constitution, or rather without any regard for the right to life. Deaths in the transfer vehicle and elsewhere, are part of a larger failure we have encountered in trying to maintain civilian and peaceful mechanisms in management of conflicts and political disputes. Regardless of the controversy and accusations exchanged by political currents, as if they never departed from the moment of sharp polarization, which paved the way for the occurrence of a series of major human rights violations, we continue to suffer the persistence of some of those patterns. The report addressed that space, which had a significant impact on victims’ families and human rights lawyers, and may have affected other sectors of society.

We seek, therefore, to represent the voices of victims. Perhaps this would help us to better recall the enormity of what happened. It may help change the awareness of some, so that there are greater opportunities for justice for those victims, and placing those violations in their proper place and describing them for they really are. The defamation of victims and their accusation - not proven by law and not supported by facts - was widely used by the ruling authority at the time in an attempt to justify what had happened. It is therefore, that we have to raise our voices, now and in the future, to talk about the details of such violations by publishing stories that have been marginalized by the widespread political repression, without restricting ourselves by judicial constraints. There is no guarantee that the courts will believe the stories of the victims.

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Finally, as always to be recalled, the contradictions of memory do not simply disappear. The survivors’ statements in this report provide a clear example thereof. They differed over simple information such as the width of the opening in the door that was made available for their exit, as well as over whether or not they were subjected to tear gas. This can only be attributed to the complexity of human memory and the association of its accuracy to an infinite number of factors and circumstances.

This report is for those violations never to happen again!