Turkey prosecutor to investigate accusations of torture, crimes against humanity by Egypt’s Sisi

Istanbul’s prosecutor has opened an investigation into alleged torture and crimes against humanity carried out at the hands of Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi and 29 other Egyptian officials.

Turkish human rights lawyer Gulden Sonmez said in a press conference held yesterday in Istanbul that her client Omar Ibrahim was tortured in four police stations, two intelligence centres, and seven prisons where he was held for three years in Egypt.

Ibrahim also survived the Egyptian security forces’ brutal dispersal of the Rabaa protest camp in August 2013. Hundreds of protesters were killed in the dispersal of the sit-in that was held in Cairo’s Rabaa Square in protest against the coup which ousted late President Mohamed Morsi.

After the surviving the dispersal, Omar Ibrahim was held on an extrajudicial basis and was subjected to torture in custody. His body still bears signs of torture and permanent damage, Sonmez added.

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