Egyptian dies of medical negligence in detention

Egyptian policemen at the entrance of a prison in the Egyptian capital Cairo. [KHALED DESOUKI/AFP/Getty Images]

Forty-year-old Egyptian prisoner, Mohamed Abdel Hamid, died yesterday after entering into a diabetic coma after he was transferred from his cell to a public hospital in Egypt’s upper city of Minya.

Abdel Hamid was arrested in May 2014 by the local security services and investigated in a case known in the media as the “Wagdy Ghoneim” case.

In 2017, the father of two was sentenced to life imprisonment, but the sentence was later reduced to 15 years.

In December 2020, the Guardian quoted a Swiss human rights report as saying that the number of people who had died while in detention had increased during 2020 to 100; bringing the total number of prison deaths to more than 1,000 since the 2013 military coup, due to torture and medical neglect.

READ: EU lawmakers urge UN to monitor Egypt human rights

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