Egyptian rights group questions official report on opposition member’s death

Human rights groups have questioned reports by the Egyptian interior ministry that a man who had been sentenced to death was killed in an exchange of fire with security officers.

In a statement, the interior ministry said that “when security forces raided an apartment which belongs to the sister of Ashraf Idris, who has been sentenced to death in absentia, in Kerdasa, Giza Governorate, to arrest him at dawn on Monday, they were surprised when shots were fired towards them from inside, which prompted the forces to shoot back.”

“The attack resulted in the death of Ashraf Idris, a jihadist who has been fugitive from a death sentence in the case of storming and burning Kerdasa police station as well as killing and cutting the bodies of a number of police officers and members of Kerdasa police station.”

The statement held Idris responsible for the assassination of an unnamed policeman who worked for the Homeland Security Sector, and accused him of forming an armed organisation targeting police and army officers.

The Egyptian Coordination for Rights and Freedoms, a non-governmental organisation based in Cairo, raised doubts around the ministry’s sequence of events, saying: “Giza security forces killed Ashraf Idris Attia and took his body away in an ambulance to an unknown location.”

On 4 October, the Egyptian interior ministry announced the killing of senior Muslim Brotherhood member, Mohamed Kamal, and his companion, during an exchange of fire with the security forces. The Brotherhood held the security forces responsible for their deaths.

Ashraf Idris was amongst seven people sentenced to death on 24 September on charge of killing a senior officer in the events of Kerdasa village in September 2013.