Kidnapped Egyptian charity worker reappears

Twenty-three year-old Egyptian engineer Abdelrahman Kamal, who was reported dead in detention by his family in December, has reappeared they say.

“Although he is still in detention and while the state of his mental and physical health are in very poor condition, at least we now know he is still alive,” his cousin Khaled Gamal told MEE.

His family were unaware of the young charity worker's whereabouts or condition since being detained by security forces on 22 September 2014. They received an anonymous call in December telling them Kamal had died in surgery after being subjected to torture at Ismailia’s Al-Azouli prison.

A few days after the release of an article in Middle East Eye about his disappearance and alleged death, the family received another anonymous call assuring them that he was still alive.

“Abdelrahman later told his lawyer that one day while he was being questioned and tortured, a security guard insisted his family see him,” said his cousin Gamal.

According to Gamal the security guard had mentioned a big fuss in the media about Abdelrahman’s alleged death which prompted his reappearance.

Kamal’s parents saw him for 10 minutes at Azouli prison on 19 January, but have not had any contact with him since.

“His mother could not even hug him; she just saw him from behind bars,” said Gamal.

“He had stitches all the way down one arm, between his wrist and elbow, while his other arm had deep burns and scars,” he added.

Gamal also said that according to Kamal’s parents, the detainee had been threatened that his mother would be raped if he did not admit to accusations made against him regarding affiliations to a terrorist group.

“Abdelrahman has strongly denied such accusations,” Kamal's lawyer Osama al-Gohary told MEE in December.

In a statement released on Wednesday, Alkarama, a Geneva-based human rights organisation, said it has sent an urgent appeal to the United Nation’s Special Rapporteur on Torture regarding the case of Kamal.

This step came after several failed attempts by his family to engage with the Egyptian public prosecutor on behalf of their son over the past four months.

While there are many documented cases of disappearance and torture in Egypt's detention facilities, Abdlerahman’s case may warrant UN action, said Alkarama legal officer Thomas-John Guinard.

“Given that Abdelrahman’s case is not one you may see every day, there is a good chance that the UN is going to take action. Abdelrahamn has been subjected to severe acts of torture and the fact that a newspaper article affected his reappearance after he had been kidnapped, may push the UN to act on his behalf, said Guinard.