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Al-Ahram Weekly 6 - 12 May 1999 Issue No. 428 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 6 - 12 May 1999 Issue No. 428
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Profile Features Special Focus Travel Living Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Trial test
By Amira HoweidyTwenty-four hours after the Supreme Military Court handed down its verdicts on 18 April in the case known as that of "the returnees from Albania", the Egyptian Organisation for Human Rights (EOHR) issued a report on the implications and significance of the largest trial of Islamist militants since 1982. Of the 107 defendants on trial, nine were given death sentences, 11 were condemned to life imprisonment, 67 received prison sentences ranging between one and 15 years and 20 were acquitted. Sixty of the 107 were tried in absentia.
EOHR representatives attended 10 of 11 court sessions and spoke at length with the families of the defendants and their lawyers. They also thoroughly examined the 25,000-page dossier of the case.
"Our legal reference in evaluating this case has been the guarantees provided by the Egyptian constitution and law for a fair trial, in addition to the international agreements related to human rights, namely the International Covenant on Political and Civil Rights and the fundamental principles established by the UN concerning the independence of the judiciary", said the report in its opening statement.
The main argument of the report is that putting civilians on trial before military courts does not, and has not, assisted in any way in the containment of violence. The decline of violence should be attributed solely to the success of security authorities in tracking down militants and coordination with other countries to gain the extradition of expatriate suspects.
The 29-page report is divided into five parts: general comments; violations accompanying the interrogation procedures; the presentation of the defence attorneys; recommendations; and a list of the names of the defendants, providing full data on the dates of their arrest, their current prison condition, the charges pressed against them and the sentences they received.
According to the report, the "returnees from Albania" case has raised to 32 the number of cases referred to military courts since 1992. The number of defendants on trial in these cases has reached 1,001. The number of death sentences handed down so far amounts to 94, and 67 of those on death row have been executed; 615 have been sentenced to imprisonment and 292 acquitted.
In a table classifying military trials since 1992, the report points out that the largest militant group, Al-Gama'a Al-Islamiya, has had the largest share of these trials, a total of 16. The number of Al-Gama'a defendants was 383 -- 51 of whom were given death sentences, 247 were imprisoned and 85 were acquitted.
The Jihad group has had ten trials referred to military courts, involving 479 defendants. Thirty-seven were sentenced to death, 277 to imprisonment and 165 were acquitted. The outlawed, but officially tolerated, Muslim Brotherhood had four military trials of 98 defendants. None received the death penalty, but 64 were imprisoned and 34 acquitted. The report also refers to the Al-Shawqeyoun militant group which faced a military trial involving 32 defendants. Four received death sentences, 21 were imprisoned and seven were acquitted.
In light of these figures, argues the EOHR report, it is evident that the Egyptian government, as a rule, is following a policy of putting civilians on trial before military tribunals. This has been a salient feature of the 1990s, it maintained.
This policy was initiated at a time when terrorist attacks were mushrooming. "The EOHR hopes that [the decline of violence] will be accompanied by a decision to stop putting civilians on trial before military courts. Moreover, providing legal guarantees to defendants accused of terrorist crimes should constitute sufficient warranty to ensure that the perpetrators of these crimes will be judged and punished", the report said.
To support its theory that the decline of violence should not be attributed to the military trials, the report provides two charts comparing the number of military trials in the 1990s to the number of victims of violence. "Military trials were never a deterrent to violence; on the contrary, they trigger more violence," it argued. The year 1995, for example, which witnessed the highest death toll -- 373 -- was the same year in which six cases were referred to military courts. In 1993, 10 military trials were held and yet the curve of violence continued to rise in the three following years to reach a climax in 1995.
In its recommendations, the EOHR report made an appeal to President Hosni Mubarak to suspend the execution of the sentences handed down in the "returnees from Albania" case as well as other death sentences which have not been carried out. Furthermore, it called for ending the state of emergency which has been in force since 1981. "It is clear that the criterion for putting members of these groups on trial before military courts has been, and continues to be, the degree of danger they constitute, even if they did not commit any crimes," said EOHR's Mahmoud Qandeel. "We are not sympathetic with anyone who violates the law or commits crimes, but we want to emphasise that there is no contradiction, whatsoever, between combating violence and respecting the principles of human rights, the constitution and the law," he told Al-Ahram Weekly.
