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Al-Ahram Weekly 20 - 26 July 2000 Issue No. 491 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 20 - 26 July 2000 Issue No. 491
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Features Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Piling up the charges
By Mariz Tadros
State security prosecutors decided on Monday to keep Khaled Fayyad, assistant director of the Ibn Khaldun Centre for Developmental Studies, in custody for an additional period of 15 days pending investigations. Fayyad is facing charges of forgery, receiving "bribes from abroad" and harming national interests. The centre's director, Saadeddin Ibrahim, is facing similar charges following his arrest on 30 June, when he was remanded in custody for 15 days. His detention was extended for a similar period last Thursday.
Two other associates taken into custody for similar periods are considered key suspects in the case. Ibrahim's financial assistant, Sudanese national Nadia Abdel-Nour faces charges akin to those of Fayyad and Ibrahim, and Osama Hammad, an accountant at the centre, was arrested for allegedly taking part in fraudulent activity and receiving "money from abroad."
A total of 11 people are now in custody, including staff members of the Ibn Khaldun Centre and the Women Voters Support Centre, an NGO affiliated with the Ibn Khaldun Centre.
Before he was ordered into custody, Ibrahim was questioned about documents seized in raids on his centre, allegedly including correspondence between him and foreign organisations asking him to provide information on Egypt's internal affairs in return for $10,000. Ibrahim denied the charges, stating that Ibn Khaldun is a non-profit NGO aimed at developing society and therefore receives money in return for preparing reports and conducting research. He allegedly blamed Fayyad and Hammad for any and all infractions allegedly committed by the centre.
The prosecution authorities claim to have seized hundreds of forged voting cards during three raids on the Ibn Khaldun Centre, and Ibrahim has also been charged with the forgeries. Ibrahim denied any connection with the forgeries, and is said to have blamed researchers at the centre for any and all infractions. The forgeries had been made in order to obtain European Union (EU) funding, prosecutors said.
According to investigators, the number of voting cards obtained by the centre at the beginning of the project did not exceed five, which was not sufficient for receiving full EU funding. They claim that Mohamed Ibrahim, an employee at the centre who was arrested last week, has confessed to having used his father's voting card as a model to print 18,000 voting cards in one month. He allegedly confessed further to having been paid to forge the cards for Ibn Khaldun, adding that the centre had ordered them made in order to obtain the money allocated by the EU to fund Third World programmes for educating citizens about their civic rights.
Although the bill of indictment has not yet been issued, Ibrahim faces the charge of receiving foreign funding without authorisation. The charge carries a minimum of seven years in prison according to Military Decree no 4 for 1992. Penal Code provisions that may also be invoked against Ibrahim include Article 78. According to the Penal Code, anyone who asks, benefits or receives money, directly or indirectly, from a foreign country, party, or representative of a foreign organisation with the intention of harming national interest should be sentenced to imprisonment with hard labour. Moreover, according to Article 206 of the Penal Code, anyone who fakes or forges, or uses fake or forged official signatures, stamps or seals shall be sentenced to imprisonment with hard labour. An additional Penal Code provision (Article 336) states that anyone who receives money by means of fraud or through making false pretences is punishable by imprisonment.
Human rights groups, however, see the arrest of Ibrahim and his associates as an attack on rights activists and civil society organisations in Egypt. Seven international human rights organisations -- including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network -- issued a joint statement earlier this week expressing grave concern over the decision to keep Ibrahim and Abdel-Nour in custody. The statement said that "Egypt's international obligations require it to respect the rights of detainees, which include being informed promptly and in detail of the charges against them." The statement also said that "the charges brought against Ibrahim and Abdel-Nour are so lacking in detail that they do not allow the defence to challenge the lawfulness of the detention order."
Invoking the Human Rights Defenders Declaration of 1998, the human rights organisations called on the Egyptian government to disclose information on the factual and legal basis for the charges against the detainees, and to ensure that human rights defenders in Egypt can work in an environment free of interference and harassment.
Last Thursday, US State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said that the US sees the issue of Ibrahim's detention "as a human rights issue and we believe that freedom of expression is at stake." Boucher called on Egyptian authorities to respect Egypt's human rights commitments, especially those signed at the Community of Democracies meetings last month in Poland. He added that the US believes that "Dr Ibrahim has a right to an independent, fair trial," and that the US embassy in Cairo will be raising the issue "at the highest levels" with the Egyptian government.
Barbara Ibrahim, Ibrahim's wife, believes that his investigation has taken on a purely political nature "and, consequently, we are going to deal with it as a political, rather than legal matter."
Meanwhile, Hafez Abu Se'da, secretary-general of the Egyptian Organisation for Human Rights (EOHR), has withdrawn from Ibrahim's defence team in protest of the inclusion of Farid El-Deeb. The latter was the lawyer of Azam Azam, who was accused by the Egyptian government of spying for Israel in 1997.
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