CAIRO, 3 July 2005 — The trial of three Egyptian men suspected of involvement in October’s deadly anti-Israeli bombings in Sinai opened yesterday with the defendants pleading not guilty and charging that confessions had been extracted under torture. Mohammed Gaiez Al-Sabah and Mohammed Rubaa Addallah appeared at the high state security court in Ismailiya, northeast of Cairo, but the third man, Mohammed Ahmed Salah Felifel is still at large and being tried in absentia.
Sabah and Rubaa were arrested two months after the attacks on the Taba Hilton hotel on Egypt’s border with Israel and on two beach resorts further south popular with foreign backpackers. Israeli officials say 12 Israelis were among the dead.
Prosecutor Ashraf Al-Esmawy said the charges included premeditated murder, resisting the authorities with force and destroying private and public property and vehicles. Sabah and Rubaa told the court that they had been subjected to torture during their detention. A government-financed rights body said in May that torture was commonplace in Egyptian detention facilities and listed at least nine deaths. The Egyptian authorities says any cases of torture are isolated and that it prosecutes torturers.
Defense lawyer Ahmed Seif Al-Islam told AFP that his clients alleged they had been tortured for three months by Egyptian security services. “There is no guarantee of a fair trial because this is an emergency court and the accused cannot lodge an appeal,” he said.
The lawyer said the court requested that a doctor examine the defendants to determine whether or not they had been tortured and adjourned the trial until July 24. According to official figures, 34 people including several Israeli tourists were killed and more than 10 wounded in triple bomb attacks on the Hilton hotel in Taba and two other neighboring resorts on Oct. 7.
The three suspects are charged with “premeditated murder, failure to surrender themselves, determination to assassinate Israeli tourists ... terrorism and resisting the authorities during arrests,” according to judiciary sources. They belong to a small, isolated group loyal to the Palestinian and Egyptian bombers who perished outside the Hilton, the authorities say.
The Interior Ministry has said 10 people were involved in the bombings, some of whom were arrested and others killed. But rights groups say several thousands of Bedouins — women, children and elderly people — have been rounded up by police in Sinai, prompting female relatives to protest what they say are arbitrary detentions.
Clashes between Egyptian security forces and suspects in the center of the Sinai Peninsula left a policeman and a gunman dead after a major police operation in the area in mid-June.
