Repatriation of Ahmed Agiza and Muhammad Al-Zery - Extra-judicial Procedure

Extra-judicial Procedure

The most remarkable thing about the deportations was their elements of extrajudicial character. The security services of Sweden had recommended that the men's requests for refugee status be denied on security grounds. The administration had obtained a statement from a high-ranking Egyptian government official stating that the men would be treated humanely and in accordance with the Egyptian constitution. On this basis, the government decided on their immediate deportation. The two men were arrested on the street, in one case, and in a telephone booth while talking with his lawyer, in the other, and they were driven to the airport within a few hours, and given over to a numerous group of American and Egyptian personnel who flew them out of the country within minutes.

Agiza and al-Zery both alleged they had received electrical shocks to their genitals.

In the meantime, the lawyer who experienced the interrupted conversation called the Swedish foreign office to figure out what was going on, but could not find anyone who could tell. Instead, he was told that no decision had been reached. The Foreign office sent certified letters to the lawyers, but these arrived only two days after the men were in Egyptian custody.

This haste circumvented all procedural rules and deprived the detainees and their lawyers of all opportunity to question the reasons, to verify the correctness of the information underlying the decisions, or to supply corrections or additional information. The men and their lawyers were never allowed to learn about the accusations against them on which the security services based their recommendation. For example, it appears that the government believed they had obtained a letter from the Egyptian authorities with clear promises of respecting the human rights of the men. When the letter was later disclosed, it turned out to promise only that they would be treated in accordance with Egypt's constitution and law. When Sweden later tried to do some follow-up on the issue, the agreement in the letter proved woefully inadequate. This could have been discovered before the deportation, quite independent of the different views of the actual danger the men posed to Sweden, and would almost certainly have been discovered had due process rules been observed.

This handling was later condemned and found illegal by the Swedish Parliamentary Ombudsman. The United Nation's Human Rights Committee found the deportation of Alzery a breach of Sweden's obligations under the international treaties that Sweden has entered into. The primary ground was the obvious and well known risk of torture to which Alzery was exposed. The immediate execution of the deportation decision was also found to breach Sweden's obligation to ensure the deportation could be reviewed by the Human Rights Committee, especially since Alzery's lawyer had previously announced his determination to appeal any negative decision to the Committee. In Agiza's case, the UN Committee on Torture reached similar conclusions.

There are indications that the two may have been victims of a miscarriages of justice. The Swedish television program Kalla Fakta that first reported these deportations stated

But much of the information that the Foreign Office and Säpo have are wrong, Agiza is not convicted of the murder of president Sadat, not even a suspect. Säpo thinks that Alzery is convicted of crimes. That is incorrect. Agiza is said to have contacts high up in Al Qaida, and it is correct that he knows Ayman Al Zawahiri, today known as Usama Bin Laden´s second in command. These two were both active in the Egyptian opposition in the beginning of the nineties, and met during Agiza´s exile in Pakistan in the middle of the nineties. But Säpo doesn't have any reports of later contacts between them. And Agiza has several times publicly denounced Al Zawahiri and his ideology of violence. Agiza is convicted. He was convicted in his absence in 1999, together with 106 others, by a military court in Cairo for membership in Talal al-Fatah, an illegal organisation. The proceedings took 20 minutes. Neither the Egyptian security police nor Swedish Säpo have been able to produce any information pointing to Alzery as a leading member of the same organization.

It is well known that Egypt routinely labels opposition activists as "terrorists" quite independent of whether their activities include violence or not. Egypt had been ruled by emergency laws most of the time for 32 years and continuously since 1981.