Select Committee on Foreign Affairs Written Evidence


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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