Ma'roof: I was tortured in Egyptian jails

[ 05/02/2010 - 08:59 PM ]

GAZA, (PIC)-- A Palestinian police officer from Gaza, who was recently released from an Egyptian jail, said that he was tortured during his week-long detention in Egypt, including being stripped from his clothes and electrocuted. In a statement on Friday published by the Palestine Today website, Ibrahim Ma'roof said that he was striped of his clothes an tied to force him to give information about Qassam leaders and the whereabouts of Israeli occupation soldier Gilaad Shalit who is being held by the Palestinian resistance. Ma'roof said that he left the Gaza Strip on 5 January to Egypt with his father who needed an open heart surgery. After the treatment Ma'roof and his father travelled back to the Gaza Strip on 27 January. At the Rafah crossing, everyone was allowed in except Ma'roof, his father and the medical team accompanying his father. Ma'roof said that after the Egyptian officers checked his passport, they told him that they will allow his father into the Strip, while they needed a couple of words with him because of some confusion around the name. He was then taken to the Egyptian security checkpoint in Rafah were he was kept for 5 hours without being asked anything, after that he was blindfolded and taken to al-Areesh where he was left the rest of the night without questioning. At 10 on the 23 Jan he was blindfolded by a group of soldiers who took him to an interrogation centre where he was questioned and accused of being a member of Hamas, a member of the Qassam Brigades and of forming an armed group that entered Egypt to assassinate Fatah cadres. He denied all accusations. Asked if he was tortured Ma'roof said that he was striped of his clothes apart from his brief. He was force to lie down on the floor on his stomach. His hands and feet were tied tighter and metal benches were placed on his back. Two electrodes were tied to his two small toes on both feet. Then they started beating and kicking him. He added that they poured kerosene on his feet before turning on the electric current. After refusing to admit to any of their allegations, he was taken to a staircase used by the officers where he was tied so that officers using the stairs could hurl abuse at him. He was kept like this until 2:00 in the morning. Ma'roof added that he saw some Palestinian officers affiliated with the defunct PA preventive security helping Egyptian intelligence. Ma'roof stressed that the questioning concentrated on asking about the leaders of the Qassam Brigades, the Qassam fighters and their positions, and the whereabouts of Gilad Shalit. An Egyptian officer that goes by the name Mahmoud Beih Abdel Halim told Ma'roof "If I bring 15 Egyptian soldiers, we will annihilate you, we will annihilate Hamas, we will annihilate the Qassam." Finally he said that he met many Palestinian prisoners, some of them detained because of working in the tunnels to smuggle food for the besieged people of the Strip and prisoners from al-Areesh whose crime was providing help and food for the besieged Gazans.