Before you read: A police officer stands in front of the investigation authority to present a defendant to the investigation authority, or this officer testifies in a particular case. That is natural and logical and happens every day, because the role of the police is preserving the general order and arresting criminals and those who are involved in corruption.
What is strange and illogical is that one of those policemen the community assigned to protect righteousness turns out abusing it. It happens that one of those responsible for the security of the flock steals their money or that an honest person turns into a criminal. The person who had been assigned to the mission to preserve security and safety has been accused of corruption, exploiting power and disturbing general security for money. However big this money was that should never be the reason for twisting and what he caused by his corruption of problems as became unveiled in this case.
What is even stranger in this case, is that the accused officer, instead of arresting criminals and defendants, accepted money to exploit his power in releasing them and helping them to flee abroad. And instead of covering his crime because of having a feeling -even slight- of guilt and fear for his crime to become known, he was proud. He was boasting of his
heroism and victory in the area of helping imprisoned terrorists to flee. He unveiled that he has sold his homeland and decided to spoil its security and blood in case those return to do the actions for which they were arrested. This was recorded by the investigation authorities on audio and video, so he lost every thing after losing his country. The facts of this case and what is on the records, if it was true, means that we are in front of a major corruption case. The ministry of interior detained him and transferred him to court.
The case we have is not one, but two. First of he is a police officer with an eagle and two stars sparkling on his shoulders who was exploiting his power. Secondly, he claimed to have power and was paid large amounts of money to use it. The single result was that this
colonel lost everything.
The facts of the case started with a strange coincidence of a meeting between the defendant "H.A.S", the brother of one of the political prisoners in the cases of terrorism, with the first defendant Colonel "A.F.H" in the civil defense and fire department. This was reported in the investigations by S., the fifth defendant, during last March and April. During one of the meetings between them in the office of the defendant colonel H., S. saw him making some important calls, which made him believe that Colonel H. has a wide net of relations and power inside the police that might help him in knowing the whereabouts of his brother who had been imprisoned three years ago.
When S. told Colonel H. that -as he said in his confessions- , H. told him that he can help and use his power to release his arrested brother through a confession of repentance written in front of a specialized officer for 30 thousand pounds to be paid by S. They were decreased after negotiations to 3,500 pounds. At that point, the case starts, the case of the corruption of a police officer who was assigned to protect the community but used his power in many illegal operations for bribes. He subjected the honor of his position and his profession for negotiations with some individuals, mingled with the trials of those to break the law in the back streets. This became all known and was recorded by sound and photography.
The details of the case are more exciting than the start. The accused Colonel H., three days after that meeting, in an attempt to prove his power in front of S. and his brothers, proposed to facilitate visiting their imprisoned brother. For that purpose he asked S. to come with one of his brothers. S. actually went and was accompanied by his brother M. -one of the defendants- to the colonel’s office in el-Kharga. He asked them to go the following morning to the prison in el-Fayoum to visit their brother. He told them that a soldier will be waiting for them and take them to a prison officer named Alaa’, who will help them visit their brother.
S. went the following morning and found the soldier waiting. Officer Alaa, however, told him that he could not see his brother because he had no permit to visit him. He allowed him to leave clothes and money for his imprisoned brother.
After that, defendant Colonel H. started exploiting the desire of S. and his brothers to see their imprisoned brother in order to start a series of bargains with the single aim of breaking the law, to obtain what he wanted at once, which is releasing the imprisoned brother in return for paying the agreed upon amount to Colonel H. He thereby did not take into account that this prisoner might be a terrorist, or on the road to terrorism, and if he would let him out of prison, he might perform terrorist actions that might increase the violent circle of terrorism again. The defendant officer did not let the chance go, even if the price would be new victims in the record of terrorism. He called S. and told him that he is able to issue a permit to visit his brother in the prison in el-Fayoum for 1,500 pounds. With this he started another series of bargains between him and the prisoner’s brother who succeeded in reducing the amount to 1,300 pounds only. They agreed that S. would see him the following day with half the amount, but he was unable to collect more than 500 pounds. One of his brothers went with him to the officer, who told them that the rest was 800 pounds. The brother tried to negotiate saying that his brother told him that the remaining amount was 500 pounds only. H. answered, according to M., the brother, that the amount was 1,500, that he had reduced it to 1,300 and that that money was for the people who will issue the permit and that he himself will take only few pounds. With this he put the blame on a large number of officers who later proved to be innocent in the investigations and there was no prove that they had assisted the defendant. They had facilitated issuing the permit for him as a colleague. In order to collect the remaining amount, the mother of the prisoner sold her necklace for 500 pounds and gave this to Colonel H. through the third defendant M. who received a permit, with his name mentioned on it, from the Prisoners Affairs Office in the office of the assistant District Attorney in Cairo. The Colonel asked him to bring the remaining amount quickly. He promised to do this as soon as he returns from the visit.
The strange thing is that the investigations prove that the defendant colonel asked M. during his first visit to leave a photocopy of his identity card to be used in issuing the permit for a visit. He wrote the request for a visit in his own handwriting and presented it to the office of the assistant District Attorney. He then received the permit for him too, and nobody knew how that happened.
What is even stranger was that M. went to visit his brother with his brother’s wife who says she entered [the prison] to see her husband without her name being included on the permit. Again, suspicions arise, even for a colleague. That left the impression with the family that the control and power of colonel H. was unlimited. This encouraged them to continue their first mission, which was to obtain the release of their imprisoned brother. It also encouraged another teacher to go to colonel H. to mediate on his behalf for a transfer from the New Valley to el-Arish, which unveiled more of the strange incidents.
Immediately after the visit, Colonel H. called S. to request the remaining 300 pounds and told him that he needed them urgently. The later told him that he can get them from colonel M.A. because he previously had dealt with him concerning finances. The investigations proved M. A. to be innocent. There were actual financial dealings between him and S. in the
form of purchasing meat and other foodstuff. H. actually got the remaining of the "contract" from M. A. who did not know that the amount was the result of the colonel exploiting his authority. With this, the first act of the case ends. More interesting acts happened in which the colonel used his sister and her husband’s position without her knowing it was used to get
more money, making the other defendants think that he has great powers. The aim was to finalize the bigger deal -sorry, the bigger bribe- which is the 13,500 pounds for getting the imprisoned brother out.
The facts of the case show that the colonel went into many negotiations with the family to finalize the deal. He was not satisfied with that, but it opened other doors for bribes. Teacher F.A. says that he offered a bribe to colonel H. to transfer him from the New Valley to el-Arish. The third witness A.A.A., a special education teacher in the intellectual education school in el-Kharga says that he met with the fifth defendant F.A. in May 1999. F.A. told him at that time that he wanted to start the procedures for a transfer to el-Arish, so he [A.A.A.] took him to a member of the People’s Assembly who obtained for him the minister’s note on his request on the condition he would obtain the approval of the director of the Education for the region of North Sinai.
The third witness said that in the beginning of June "I went with the defendant F. to the office of colonel H., where a conversation about the latter’s desire to buy a piece of agricultural land took place. H. knew that F. wanted to move to Northern Sinai, so he offered his help and told him that his brother-in-law was a police officer in el-Arish and that he can finalize it for him. H. called his sister and gave her the information about F." The third witness added that F. told him afterwards that he met colonel H. once more. H. asked him during the meeting for 2,000 pounds in order use his power with the officials in the North Sinai zone to finalize the procedures and transfer him. After that, the third witness went with his friend F. to the office of colonel H. He was surprised to see him offering H. 1,500 pounds that he accepted and he [H.] asked for another 500 pounds which the fifth defendant promised to pay later. After that, F. traveled to Arish and met with officer H.G., H.’s brother-in-law who had no knowledge of the deal as was later proved by the investigations. This officer organized that he and his wife would meet with one of her [the officer’s wife] friends -the fourth witness, who testified with the same facts- in the educational zone to finalize his procedures.
The matter gets stranger when we know that the sister of colonel H.H. is one of the witnesses against him in the case, especially because neither she, nor her husband knew of the deal between her brother and the teacher and that they have done that as a gesture of goodwill for her brother.
F. confirms the words of his colleague, the third witness, assuring that H. called him one day and said: "I have made an agreement with those who will transfer you and they asked for two thousand pounds to do it". He says, that when he refused at first, H. told him that they would use it to buy a golden present for the female director and the specialized officials so he agreed because he wanted to be transferred by any means.
While H. was finalizing the deal of transferring F., he was working on another deal concerning the release of prisoner A.S. He did not waste any time and called S., the brother of the prisoner and told him to act before the effect of what they had seen would go away, and he asked him to come to his office immediately. S. went and colonel M.A. witnessed this meeting. H. told S. that his imprisoned brother had been transferred to the New Valley prison and that he was about to finalized the procedures of releasing him. He asked for 7,000 pounds as a down payment for the previous agreement. S. refused to pay anything before his brother would be released but his other brother M. agreed to pay and told him that he would sell his cattle to pay. They left until the required amount was collected and came back.
In this period, H. called M.S., the brother of the prisoner, several times to request him to pay the 7,000 pounds, which made M. suspect him. He told his brother S. about his doubts and they went to colonel M.A. to ask his opinion. M.A. told them to inform the State Security Investigation of the incidents. This was the final act of the story which was directed by lieutenant A.A.A. of the branch of the State Security Investigations in the New Valley. The first witness starts to talk.
In his testimony before the investigation authorities he [the first witness] told how the defendants were arrested: after the defendants M.S. and H.S. reported the case, we investigated the incident and the report proved to be true. The defendant had been able to convince them that he had connections with officials in the State Security and other higher authorities that would allow him to release their imprisoned brother which was not true. After the conclusions of the investigations were made, I presented the case to the investigation authority that issued a permit to record the dialogues between colonel H. and S. They arrested and searched him after he took part of the money as a bribe. This was done in coordination with the two reporters after S. went to the State Security and told them that colonel H. had asked to see him urgently on July 24 at 10 o’clock in the evening to deliver the first amount of the agreed upon amount which was 5,000 pounds as recorded in the investigations.
The first witness continued his words. This was coordinated with Colonel M.A., who allowed us to use his apartment, technically to record this meeting. He adds that he [M.A.] sat with a tape recorder in the reception that allowed him to watch and listen to the meeting. At about 11 o’clock H.S. and M.S. came. At one o’clock in the morning H. came and a long conversation took place. Its content was that the reporters brought the 5,000 pounds which had been agreed upon and that they brought it although they were poor and asked the defendant to deliver his promise of releasing their imprisoned brother. The first witness assured that he saw the first defendant receiving the 5,000 pounds, then, he told the reporters that 8,000 pounds remained. At that moment, the third witness, lieutenant A.A. came in with the accompanying police force to arrest the defendant with the mentioned amount.
It was strange that the defendant, during that meeting, went on speaking of his victories and heroism, to assure to the brothers of the prisoner his power and ability to release political prisoners. He assured that he had actually released and sent abroad political prisoners by forged identity cards and passports. He offered to do that to their brother, but they said
that they did not have enough money.
This strange case ended with the arrest of the defendants. But we would like to draw attention to the words of the defendant about sending political prisoners abroad with forged documents. We are facing a great corruption incident that was dealt with by the Ministry of Interior when it presented the case to the jurisdiction.
