Azzam in Cairo to discuss issue of Islamic Jihad prisoners in Egypt’s jails

[ 20/05/2010 - 11:05 AM ]

GAZA, (PIC)-- Senior Islamic Jihad leader Nafid Azzam traveled on Wednesday to Cairo to discuss the file of his Movement’s detainees in Egyptian jails, who were arrested upon their return to the Gaza Strip. Spokesman for the Movement Da’wood Shihab said that Azzam went to Egypt after he received an official invitation to visit Cairo to discuss the file of Islamic Jihad prisoners there, denying any kind of mediation in this regard between his Movement and Egypt. The spokesman noted that the number of Islamic Jihad prisoners in Egyptian jails is about 30 Palestinians, affirming that all of them used legal ways and official documents during their travel from and to Egypt. In a related context, an Egyptian state security officer reported, on condition of anonymity, that a Palestinian citizen from Gaza called Ayman Nofal, imprisoned for years, is living in harsh incarceration conditions and exposed to severe torture in Egyptian jails. The officer said he saw Nofal twice being taken to the interrogation room with his hands and feet shackled, adding that the Palestinian prisoner was locked up alone for more than one year and a half inside Abu Zaabal prison in Cairo in a two square meter solitary cell, having no source of ventilation or lighting, except a metal bucket used as a toilet. He revealed further that in the last six months, a prisoner affiliated with Hamas joined Nofal in his new two square meter cell inside Al-Marj prison in Cairo and both of them sleep alternately because of the narrow area of the cell. “When I saw him, once, he was being carried by soldiers in the corridor of the investigation section and unable to walk alone because of the severe torture he was subjected to during the interrogation. His body was frail, his hair and beard were unshaven for months and he was wearing an unbearably smelly clothes to the extent that the two soldiers carrying him could not put up with the smell,” the officer confirmed. The officer noted that the prison administrations in Egypt deny the presence of Palestinian detainees in their cells and transfer them to special places underground whenever human rights activists visit the jails. He also disclosed that the prison administrations of Al-Marj, Burj Al-Arab and Abu Zaabal as well as the state security in Cairo received top official orders to tighten punitive measures against Palestinian prisoners and do everything that could humiliate them, especially those affiliated with Hamas, to punish them for their Movement’s refusal to sign Egypt’s reconciliation paper.