Letter to the Chairman of the Committee
from Mr Alistair Nisbet, 2 December 2003
BRITISH CITIZENS ON TRIAL IN EGYPT
Dear Mr Anderson,
I write to you as Chairman of the Foreign Affairs
Committee to draw your attention to the plight of three young
British men who have been held in custody in Egypt for the last
20 months; for thirteen of those they have been undergoing what
passes for a trial. Their names are Ian Nisbet, Maajid Nawaz and
Reza Pankhurst and I am Ian's father.
The men have been accused and charged with promoting
in Egypt the aims of an allegedly illegal organisation (Hizb ut
Tahrir, the Islamic Liberation Party) which wishes to achieve
its aims peacefully and which abjures violence entirely. At this
stage I should state that the organisation is a legal entity in
the UK and that the men admit freely to being members here although
my wife and I neither belong to it and nor share its aims. The
men deny absolutely however that they were attempting to promote
its aims while abroad. Ian and Maajid were in Egypt to study,
Maajid as a mandatory part of his University degree studies and
Ian at a college which teaches Arabic to foreigners. Reza was
working at running an IT company and Ian worked there part time.
A fourth student was also arrested at the same time but was eventually
released four months later.
When arrested in the middle of the night of
1 April 2002 the Britons were violently treated and subsequently
tortured to produce "confessions", these being obtained
under threat that their wives and children would be abused. They
were denied access to the British Consul for 11 days, indeed the
Consul was not informed where they were for seven of these in
spite of appeals from the men's wives. Nor for that matter did
the Consulate offer any information during these first few days,
all the contact had to be made by the wives. Subsequently Ian
was allowed a short phone call to his wife and told her, in coded
language, to get out of the country and the others followed shortly
afterwards.
The men were held for 56 days without being
allowed access to a lawyer and were not charged with anything,
along with 23 Egyptian citizens, until 4 August 2002 although
there were frequent interrogation sessions and court appearances.
The charges relate to allegedly promoting in speech and writing
the aims of a banned organisation.
There have been constant delays and adjournments
during the snail's pace progress of the case through the court
and earlier this year the very legality of the State Security
Emergency court, in which the case is being heard, has been challenged
in Egypt. Not least of the delays came right at the start when
the Prosecution was unable even to get its exhibits correctly
marshalled. These consisted of, inter alia, numerous books
in English and Arabic, a sports magazine in English, a passport,
a return air ticket to London, a diary recording the development
and progress of one of the men's children, and perhaps worst of
all a collection of supermarket till receipts—in reality
everything consisted of what was grabbed at random by the arresting
thugs.
Nothing that has emerged in the court has so
far indicated that the Prosecution has anything of a case to be
answered to—none of the so-called arresting officials could
actually remember anything about the arrest or the premises from
which the men were taken except for the fact that everyone was
very eager to confess everything on the way to the police station,
ie SS Headquarters, which was where the torture took place. The
men were of course not those who made the arrests but those who
undertook the torture and interrogations.
The British Ambassador and Consul have both
been involved in many discussions with Egyptian Ministers and
officials but it is sad to have to report that little reliance
can be placed on what has been said by the Egyptians—indeed
the Prosecutor General assured Ian in front of the Consul that
he would not use the "confessions" in court but these
have been the main, indeed the only, plank on which they have
built their case.
The latest adjournment has been from late July
until the verdict is due to be announced on 25 December—surely
no coincidence that neither HMG nor the British media will be
at work at that time should the decision go against the accused.
Nothing has happened during this five months that could not have
been done in the week or two following the announcement—written
statements have been made by both sides a month apart and nothing
more.
It has recently been discovered by our Egyptian
lawyers that Hizb ut Tahrir has never actually been banned in
Egypt (although most other Islamic countries do ban its existence)—
a former member was ejected and joined another organisation which
did not have peaceful aims and it was this one which was subsequently
banned.
We have the active support of Fair Trials Abroad
and Amnesty International— indeed the latter organisation
was refused permission to see the men when they requested this
in October 2002. We also have the active support of our MPs, (Tim
Boswell, Tony Banks, Stephen Timms and David Amess) as well as
a number of MEPs of all parties. The Egyptian Ambassador refused
at one time to meet the MPs and was abusive to the families and
our supporters when we held a protest outside his Embassy on 1
April this year— one year on from the arrest date.
While we accept that the Foreign & Commonwealth
Office has limited powers to enforce anything in another country
nevertheless we do feel that more pressure could have been brought
to bear on the Egyptian Government and perhaps at a higher level—
letters to the Prime Minister from families and the men themselves
have not even been acknowledged but simply passed to the FCO to
deal with. There has to be a suspicion that there must be some
reason why the FCO does not wish to rock the boat with the Egyptian
Government even though their record on Human Rights is appalling.
I therefore wonder whether there is any further
pressure that can be brought to bear by your Committee on either
the Foreign & Commonwealth Office or the Egyptian Government.
There is further information to be found on the families' website:
www.free-egypt-3.org
and if you feel it will be of assistance then
I can come to London for a meeting. No doubt the men's wives would
like to attend as well.
A similar letter has gone to Ann Clwyd as Chair
of the Human Rights Committee.
Alistair F Nisbet
Copies to:
Tim Boswell MP
David Amess MP
Tony Banks MP
Stephen Timms MP
Christian Khan Solicitors
2 December 2003
Letter from the Chairman to the Foreign Secretary,
12 December 2003
Please find enclosed a letter I received last
week from Mr Alastair Nisbet, whose son is currently facing trial
in Egypt. I would be most grateful if you were able to provide
me with further information about the details of the case, and
about the assistance Mr Nisbet's son, and his fellow detainees,
are receiving from our Embassy in Cairo.
I have sent a copy of this letter to Mr Nisbet.
I look forward to receiving your reply in due course.
Rt Hon Donald Anderson MP
12 December 2003
Letter from the Foreign and Commonwealth
Office to the Chairman
Thank you for your letter of 12 December 2003
to Jack Straw enclosing one from Alistair Nisbet, father of one
of three British nationals currently detained in Egypt. I am replying
as Minister responsible for consular matters.
I am very familiar with this case and can assure
you that we are doing all that we properly can for the three men.
Ministers and officials have been actively involved since the
men were first detained in April 2003 and the degree of ministerial
and senior official attention the case has received is considerable.
The Egyptian Government can be in no doubt about the seriousness
with which we take this case.
We have kept the families fully informed of
any developments in the case and they have had the opportunity
to raise directly their concerns with Ministers. I met the men's
families on 28 October 2003. Prior to this, the men's families
met my predecessor, Baroness Amos, in February 2003. I have scheduled
another meeting with them on 14 January. Officials in our Consular
Directorate remain in regular contact with the men's families.
On both occasions when Ministers have met the families, we have
tried to reassure them that we have been doing all we properly
can to assist them and their relatives, and that we will continue
to do so.
Mr Nisbet has expressed disappointment that
letters from the men and their families to the Prime Minister
have not been acknowledged by the Prime Minister personally. I
can assure you and Mr Nisbet that the Prime Minister is aware
of the issues surrounding this case. As I am sure you will understand,
it is appropriate that his office refers any correspondence relating
to consular issues to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office as we
are best placed to respond to any concerns the men's families
may have.
We take all allegations of torture and mistreatment
very seriously. We have raised the men's allegations with the
Egyptian authorities on several occasions and at all levels. The
Prime Minister raised the case in a private meeting with President
Mubarak in January 2003. The Foreign Secretary and Foreign Office
Ministers have also made representations to the Egyptian Foreign
Minister, Ahmed Maher, and others. Baroness Amos wrote to Ahmed
Maher twice to request an investigation into the allegations.
I also expressed my concern over the lack of progress with the
investigation in a phone call to Ahmed Maher on 20 October 2003.
I followed this up with a letter 11 December 2003.
Officials at our Embassy in Cairo have also
been active in raising the case with the Egyptian authorities.
Our former Ambassador to Cairo, John Sawers, discussed the case
with Egyptian officials on numerous occasions. Our current Ambassador,
Sir Derek Plumbly, raised it with the Minister of Interior on
4 November 2003 and with the Prosecutor General on 17 November
2003. We will continue to press the Egyptian authorities for a
full and satisfactory response to our request for an investigation
into the allegations.
As Mr Nisbet mentions in his letter, that there
have been a number of adjournments throughout the trial. I am
afraid we have no influence over this. We cannot interfere with
the judicial process of another country. The courts are an independent
body and adjournments are the judge's decision. However, where
appropriate, we have raised this issue with the Egyptian authorities.
The verdict was due to have been announced on 25 December. Despite
Mr Nisbet's concerns that FCO officials would not be on duty on
Christmas day, members of the Embassy staff in Cairo did attend
the court session. Consular staff in London were also on duty
to inform the families in the UK of the outcome. Unfortunately,
the judge decided to adjourn the verdict until 25 March 2004.
We understand how deeply disappointing this must have been for
the men and their families. We are seeking an explanation for
the adjournment from the Egyptian authorities. I have written
to Ahmed Maher again about this.
Our consular officials in Cairo continue to
monitor the men's welfare and visit them regularly. I assure you
that we will continue to do all that we properly can to assist
the men and to provide information and support to their relatives
in the United Kingdom.
Baroness Symons
Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office
13 January 2004
Email from Mr Alistair Nisbet, to the Chairman
THE EGYPT
THREE
Many thanks for forwarding the response from
the FCO—we were not however aware that Donald Anderson had
written to Jack Straw as we had no earlier response to my letter.
There are some inaccuracies in the Minister's
letter, including the statement that the men were arrested in
April 2003 whereas it was actually in 2002. Regrettably the letter
is full of the same tired old stock phrases which we see in so
many letters from the FCO—"doing all we properly can",
"not interfering in the judicial process of another country"
etc etc. We are not asking for interference, simply for rather
greater pressure to be exerted which we believe could be done
were the will to do so there, and for justice to be seen to be
done. We have now to question why, after all this time, there
seems to be a lack of commitment to obtaining the release of the
men rather than simply letting the process drag on and on—we
have after all no guarantee that when 25 March comes along the
judge will not simply repeat the delaying process. Even the Egyptian
press have commented that this has now made legal history there
for no case has ever been so prolonged without a verdict. Indeed
the Director of Fair Trials Abroad (Stephen Jakobi) has said at
a meeting with the Minister on 14 January that he has never come
across a similar situation anywhere else in the world. It is as
if the Egyptian authorities are imposing a prison sentence without
actually having to formally announce it for by the end of March
the men will have served two years in jail.
We also find we have no explanation, when asked
by members of the media and others, for the apparent difference
in action concerning these men and those held at Guantanamo Bay.
At the meeting with the Minister, attended by a representative
of Amnesty International as well as FTA, Stephen Jakobi hinted
at possible CIA involvement to which the Minister simply noted
the comment.
We are glad that the Ambassador was charged
with talking to the Foreign Minister yet again but feel that this
is not the correct route to achieve anything—the FM has
no more power to influence a case than either Foreign Secretary
(or for that matter the Home Secretary) should have over a case
here. We are well aware that the only person with real power is
the President and/or the Head of the State Security organisation.
We are also aware that the judiciary do not have true independence
and are subject to influence from other parties if they do not
wish to join other colleagues in the prisons—to say therefore
that the decision for the latest delay is the judges' own is to
ignore the real situation.
We also have to question just how well the Prime
Minister is actually informed—although he met the Egyptian
President during his latest holiday in that country he failed
to discuss the case of these men at all, even though he is said
to have done so a year ago although this appears to have brought
no beneficial results. Furthermore you will be aware that he answered
a PMQ from David Amess MP recently and in doing so he repeated
the canard that the organisation which they are accused of promoting
has been banned in Egypt. This is not the case for it is another
entirely unrelated organisation which advocates violence which
has been banned since 1974—and rightly so I say. On this
basis there appears to be no case to answer and the men should
never have been brought to trial in the first place but this point
seems to be ignored by the FCO. What is of particular concern
about this is that only a week prior to the PMQ, at the meeting
with Baroness Symons, we had found it necessary to inform the
Minister of the situation regarding banning, in spite of having
told her officials of this repeatedly since it was discovered
by our Egyptian lawyers last summer. There appears to be some
very selective briefing at work here. We are now aware that David
Amess and the other MPs representing the families have written
to the PM to correct his statement.
I do accept that we cannot expect the Prime
Minister to respond personally to every letter addressed to him
but it is surely simple common courtesy for his staff to, at the
very least, acknowledge receipt and say where the letter is being
re-directed to for a reply—I believe this used to apply
during the terms of office of previous PMs. I worked for MoD for
many years and there were standing instructions that all public
correspondence was to be acknowledged within four working days,
if I recall it correctly, and that a full reply should be sent
within something like 21 days. This clearly does not apply at
No 10 and I find it particularly regrettable that no response
was made when the men wrote in November saying they felt their
lives were in danger from certain inmates in the prison. Since
writing the original of this I have learned that a friend has
indeed had an acknowledgement from the Prime Minister's office
but we still remain without any contact.
I hope you will be able to make Mr Anderson
and the other members of the Committee aware of these sentiments.
Alistair Nisbet
Annex
British hostages in Egypt
In the early hours of 1 April 2002 four young
British men were arrested by armed men—Ian Nisbet and Reza
Pankhurst were taken in Cairo by eight men armed with SLRs, side-arms
and hand grenades while two students, Maajid Nawaz and Hassan
Rizvi, were taken into custody by an even larger and more heavily
armed squad in Alexandria. At the same time around 100 Egyptians
were arrested.
Ian was in Cairo for a short course on Arabic
for foreigners at a college there and was working part time with
Reza who had come to Cairo to run an IT company, having been made
redundant in London. Reza's mother and stepfather are expatriate
workers in Cairo and while there he also was attempting to learn
Arabic. Ian, Reza and Maajid had all been converts to Islam while
in the UK. Hassan and Maajid were in Alexandria for a mandatory
year abroad as part of their degree courses from British universities—Exeter
in the case of Hassan and London (SOAS) for Maajid.
The arresting people were apparently seeking
someone with a different name from Ian but nevertheless they took
him away with various items from his flat, all of which were bundled
into a sack. They would not say who they were nor why they were
there. All four men were taken to the State Security Headquarters
in Nasr City and were systematically tortured for five or six
days and we are aware that Reza Pankhurst was subjected to electric
shocks. At the end of all this they were forced to sign statements
in Arabic, which they could not read, on pain of their families
being abused. As soon as they were able to do so the three men
retracted these "confessions" and the Minister at the
Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), Baroness Symons, has accepted
that they were extracted under duress. Equally the Deputy Ambassador
in Cairo has told us that it is accepted that torture is widely
used in Egypt.
Ian, Reza and Maajid were eventually allowed
brief phone calls to their families during which they advised
them to return to the UK which they did as soon as possible. Thereafter
only occasional phone calls were permitted on the British Consul's
mobile phone and these were only permitted from a staircase in
the court building, by special permission of the judge, although
they were subjected to constant hassle by the guards to finish
as soon as they had started. Once the court appearances were over
no further calls were permitted as "Egyptian prison rules
do not allow these". This, like so many other abuses, is
considered to be in breach of international law.
Nevertheless in August 2003, after I suggested
it to the British authorities, they did seek agreement to phone
calls being made from the prison when Consular visits took place.
They were very grudgingly given permission provided a foreign
diplomat's mobile phone is used but even these have to be applied
for long in advance and there is never a guarantee that they will
be permitted when the diplomats reach the prison.
The men were denied access to the British Consul
for 11 days, indeed they were told he didn't want to see them,
and were denied access to lawyers for 56 days. Both these are
in clear breach of international treaties to which Egypt has signed
up. There were many other human rights abuses including being
held in solitary confinement in Masra Tora prison—later
it emerged that they were in punishment cells measuring about
2m x 3m. They were denied access to toilet facilities for much
of the day, being told to use a plastic bottle and a carrier bag.
They had no beds until money was sent to Egypt by the families
to buy them, also to buy a fridge so they could have cold drinks.
To this day we still have to send money regularly to pay for food,
clothing and other comforts like soap etc for them.
Over the ensuing four months there were many
court appearances, each of which resulted in the period of detention
being extended, until finally on 4 August 2002 Ian, Maajid and
Reza were charged with allegedly promoting in speech and writing
an allegedly banned organisation—I use the word allegedly
deliberately. In addition Reza was charged with possession of
a computer. At the same time 23 Egyptians were charged with similar
offences and the remainder were released. The Egyptian citizens
who are on trial are held in a different prison from the Britons.
The case has been heard in the Emergency State Security court
from which no appeal is permitted although it has emerged that
the very legality of such a court is being challenged in Egypt.
Hassan Rizvi was eventually released a week after the others were
charged although he was subjected to further torture in a drowning
cell in Alexandria before the British Vice Consul was able to
obtain his release and return to the UK. He has now resumed his
degree course.
The organisation which the men are charged with
promoting is Hizb-ut-Tahrir, roughly translated as the Islamic
Liberation Party. The organisation is a legal entity and the men
do not deny membership in the UK; they do however deny absolutely
that they were doing anything to promote its aims in Egypt. Everything
I have seen or heard about the organisation says that it is a
peaceful one which seeks to achieve its aims by peaceful and rational
discussion, contrary to some of the utter rubbish which has been
put out by the Egyptian authorities, and indeed by some of the
British media, including suggestions that it is a terrorist organisation
and that they wish to overthrow the Egyptian Government. At this
stage I must make it clear that neither my wife nor I support
the organisation nor its aims but we defend absolutely Ian's right
to hold the views that he does.
The trial of the Britons, along with the 23
Egyptian citizens, eventually started in late October 2002 but
it was a very different matter from a trial under either English
or Scots law. The accused are held in a small steel cage along
with guards and sometimes even people on other charges and cases
altogether. There have rarely been enough seats for all to sit
down and on at least one occasion there were bottles of urine
from a previous day left in it. The conditions in which they are
transported from the prison are inhumane—locked in a steel
truck with virtually no ventilation and crammed with 40 or 50
people for a journey of an hour or more. During much of the year
in Cairo the daytime temperatures can reach upwards of 35C.
Initially the prosecution brought out various
exhibits which they claimed were evidence of guilt—there
were some 47 boxes and packages of them and many things did not
even relate to people who were on trial. They were also in such
a muddled state that the judge ordered an immediate adjournment
of a fortnight to allow them to be sorted out. When the productions
were eventually considered to be correct they were found to be
things grabbed at random by the arresting people they were nevertheless
listed by the judge. They included such incriminating things as
a return air ticket to the UK, a passport, a diary in which one
wife recorded her children's development, a sports magazine in
English, numerous books in English and Arabic and, perhaps worst
of all, a collection of supermarket till receipts. If it wasn't
so serious it would make a wonderful script for a farce.
The first adjournment set the pattern of the
way the case has proceeded—at a snail's pace and with numerous
further adjournments. One lasted for three months while the Arabic
books were inspected by a committee from the Al Azhar University:
none were found to be incriminating or seditious, indeed it was
recommended that at least one should be read by all Egyptian citizens.
I believe that the books in English were also translated and found
to be OK. None of this came as a surprise as those in Arabic had
been bought openly in Egypt.
The prosecution eventually brought forward its
witnesses last January, alleging that these were the men who had
made the arrests. Strangely however none could recall anything
about the place, date or the details of the locations of the arrests
except that all were adamant the prisoners had all been falling
over themselves to confess to everything in the vans on the way
to the police station (ie State Security interrogation facility—this
location was eventually admitted to by one of them on pain of
imprisonment by the judge). In reality these were the interrogators
and torturers.
The final court appearance was in late July
2003 when the judge announced that the verdict would be given
on 25 December. After that date nothing happened which could not
have taken place in the first two weeks of August—the defence
lawyers put in some documents to the court at the end of September,
the prosecution entered their written case in late October and
the defence did likewise in late November. In the almost 15 months
elapsed time since its start the men have spent less than three
weeks in court.
On 25 December the men were brought back to
court and when the judge entered he called the register, announced
a further three months delay and left without any explanation
whatsoever. All those present were left speechless including the
British Consul and the Deputy Ambassador who, together with the
Ambassador, had been constantly assured by the Egyptian authorities
that the verdict would be made known then. This, to the families,
is just another occasion when deliberate lies have been told to
the accused and to British officials and Ministers by the Egyptian
authorities. A particularly bad example of this was when the Prosecutor
told Ian, in the presence of the British Consul, that his "confession"
would not be used in court but this seems to have been the mainstay
of the prosecution case against the men.
Since the court last sat in July our Egyptian
lawyers have discovered that, in spite of what the Egyptian Government
may say to the contrary, Hizb-ut-Tahrir has never been banned
in Egypt. This has formed a main plank in the written case for
the defence. We understand however that another organisation,
which seeks to achieve its aims by violent means, was banned in
1974 and is called Fen Askari.
The three men have written to the Prime Minister
on three separate occasions, as have members of the families here
in the UK, but not one of us has had so much as an acknowledgement
from a minion in No 10 Downing Street let alone a personal response
from Mr Blair.
It was with considerable concern that we learned
of the re-arrest, just before the verdict was due to have been
announced, of those 80 or so Egyptian citizens who had been released
in August 2002. Why this should be so we do not known.
To conclude we have the active support of our
MPs, MEPs and Amnesty International, who were refused permission
to see the men while on a fact finding mission in Egypt in October
2002, and also of Fair Trials Abroad. It would be so much better
if we had the wholehearted support of the British Government and
one has to compare the arrangements which have apparently been
made for the Britons held at Guantanamo Bay and ask why such support
is not forthcoming. One has also to ask why most of the national
press, TV and radio stations in the UK have been so uninterested
in the case that we now believe the men should be referred to
as The Forgotten Three. It has been a different matter with the
local media who have generally been supportive but The Guardian
has been the only national to have regularly printed articles
about them.
Alistair Nisbet
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