Faceless confessions
Jailan Halawi reports from the courtroom where alleged members of the radical Islamic Liberation Party are being tried
The Sunday afternoon air was charged in the Cairo state security court resumed as it resumed its trial of 23 Egyptians and three Britons charged with belonging to the banned Hizbul-Tahrir or Liberation Party. The defendants are also accused of attempting to revive the activities of an illegal group that aims to obstruct the legal system and undermine state institutions.
In the courtroom families crammed around the caged dock with plastic bags loaded with food and drinks, which they tried to pass through the bars to the defendants. Other family members were crowded around the defence lawyers discussing the finer points of the case.
At 4pm, silence reigned as judge Ahmed El-Ashmawi entered the courtroom, along with two other judges and the state security prosecutor. The session was to be dedicated to hearing the testimonies of six out of a total of 22 prosecution witnesses -- all of whom are the state security officers who arrested the defendants. The first witness, however, had not shown up, so the judge ordered the prosecutor to find out why. The second witness, meanwhile, was told to approach the podium, while the remaining four witnesses were told to leave the courtroom until their turn came.
After taking the oath, Captain Alaa Hazem Selim, the state security officer who was in charge of arresting Ahmed Ibrahim, the first suspect in the case, recounted the details of the day of the arrest. Ibrahim, Selim recounted, was arrested at his home, and documents seized from his bedroom, on the first of April 2002, on the strength of a warrant from the prosecutor.
According to Selim, Ibrahim confessed to belonging to the Liberation Party while in the police car taking him from his home to a state security office. He also provided "full details" about his recruitment to the party, Selim alleged. Selim said Ibrahim told him he was first introduced to the party's ideology through Alaa El-Zanati [the second suspect] in 1988, but only became an active member in 1992. In 1995, Ibrahim went to Saudi Arabia for a year, where he allegedly met with other party members -- a Syrian and two Jordanians -- to learn more about their agenda. It was at this time that he vowed to provide five per cent of his monthly salary to the group. Back in Egypt in 1996, Ibrahim reportedly re- established his connection with the Liberation Party through El-Zanati, who assigned him the tasks of recruiting as many members as possible, teaching them the party's ideologies and collecting the agreed upon membership fees.
The Liberation Party was established in Jordan in 1953 by Taqieddin Al- Nabhani, a Palestinian who died in obscure circumstances in the Palestinian territories in 1978. The current leader of the banned group is Palestinian Abdul- Qaddim Zalloum, whose whereabouts are unknown. According to Selim, Ibrahim told him that the group's leaders in Egypt informed him that Zalloum would be sending him money to buy a flat which, under cover as a business centre, would be the group's headquarters.
It was at this business centre [believed to be the party's headquarters] that the second defendant, El-Zanati, was arrested, according to the testimony given by Captain Khaled Abul-Kheir, who also said that books by party founder El- Nabahani were seized from there.
The Liberation Party seeks to restore the Caliphate, an Islamic government for all Islamic states, through military coups across the region, the prosecution claims. The movement has a presence in several Arab countries, and was founded in Egypt in 1974 by two Palestinians, Salem Rahhal and Saleh Serrya -- only to be crushed by Egyptian authorities in the same year after being blamed for an attempted coup known as "the incident of the Technical Military Academy", in which armed militants attacked that Cairo-based academy. The group's members, however, denied any links to the attempted coup, insisting that they only aimed to promote their ideology peacefully. The party is one of the most active radical Islamist groups in Central Asia, and also has a branch in Britain, where the group is legal.
Although Selim provided a great deal of detail regarding what Ibrahim told him, he was unable to recognise the suspects he had arrested when asked by to do so by the judge, which ended up dealing a significant blow to the prosecutor's case. Speaking to Al-Ahram Weekly from the dock as the court recessed for a short break, Ibrahim said, "the officer's testimony is far from the truth." The suspect denied having such a conversation with Selim.
Suspects and their families interviewed by the Weekly were obviously sympathetic to the party's ideology, describing its aims as "a universal Muslim goal". With a serene smile on her face, one of the defendant's wives told the Weekly that since little was known about the Liberation Party, this trial -- which charges defendants with the revival of the group -- is "the party's real revival".
The defendants have pleaded not guilty and said they were tortured while in custody as a way of coercing them into confessing to the charges. During the recess, two of the Britons on trial, Ian Nisbett and Majid Nawaz, held a sign that said, "Torturers in April, witnesses in December, what a farce". The three Britons did not deny belonging to the party in the United Kingdom but said they were not on a mission for the group in Egypt.
According to an expert on Islamist groups speaking on condition of anonymity, "it is very difficult to believe that there is no basis to the charges against the defendants. It is very unlikely that radical groups would send their members to countries -- especially Islamic ones -- without a political motive since their main goal is to spread their ideologies throughout all the Islamic states."
As the court continued to hear testimonies from officers who had arrested various members of the group, however, judge El-Ashmawi pointed out that many of the names of alleged party members being brought up were not on the indictment list.
