Derrik Sweeney, who returned home on Saturday, said the students were forced to lay in a fetal position for seven hours in darkness after their arrest, their hands cuffed behind their backs and jackets pulled over their heads.
“It was terrifying. One of the worst parts was the constant uncertainty,” Sweeney, 19, told Reuters in a telephone interview from his home in Jefferson City, Missouri.
“Fortunately the treatment got better at one point, but we didn’t know what would happen.”
The students — Sweeney of Georgetown University, Gregory Porter, 19, of Drexel University and Luke Gates, 21, of Indiana University — were detained during protests demanding an end to military rule before Egypt’s parliamentary elections.
The trio were paraded on Egyptian television last week after being accused of throwing gasoline bombs at police protecting the Interior Ministry, near Cairo’s Tahrir Square, during the protests.
Sweeney denied the charges, saying, “We did not throw, handle or even witness Molotov cocktails.”
Egyptian television also aired videos, taken by phone cameras, that it said showed the three taking part in the protest at night. One of the people wore a medical face mask that many protesters have been using to protect against tear gas. Another had a headscarf around his mouth.
The students were freed on Friday and flew home separately to the United States the following day.
Sweeney said the students, all enrolled at the American University in Cairo, were on their way to Tahrir Square “to see democracy in action” when an Egyptian classmate asked them to hold his backpack as he waded into the crowd.
They were standing on a side street near the ministry when four men in street clothes approached and insisted on leading them away “to safety, away from the violence,” Sweeney said.
“When we started to resist, they pushed Porter to the ground and started to hit us repeatedly,” Sweeney said.
The students were brought into a building by the men, who shouted “Spy! Spy!” and the backpack was seized, Sweeney said. He said he did not know the contents of the backpack. Egyptian authorities later said the students were being held on suspicion of throwing firebombs.
Soon the Americans were standing in front of at least 15 members of the Egyptian police and military and ordered to keep their arms at their sides, he said.
“They had several questioning sessions with us. They threatened to feed us gasoline. They held a bottle of gas in front of our mouths,” Sweeney said.
For the next seven hours, the students were forced to lay in a fetal position, Sweeney said. If they moved at all, the students were told, they would be shot.
“We could hear them fiddling with their guns,” he said.
Another of the students, Gates, arrived home in Indiana early on Sunday, said Indiana University spokesman Mark Land.
The third student, Porter, who embraced his family at Philadelphia International Airport on Saturday night.
“I’m just so thankful to be back and love being in Philadelphia right now,” said Porter, who lives in suburban Glenside, Pennsylvania.
Despite the experience, Sweeney, who hopes to pursue a career in the US military as a specialist in Middle East affairs, said he hoped to return to Egypt.
“I made a lot of friends there. I think the Egyptian people are good people and I hope to go back there some time, inshallah (God willing),” Sweeney said.
