Egypt coup: Leaked tape proves defence minister tried to conceal Morsi’s true location in military prison, say forensic scientists

Leaked tapes of Egyptian generals apparently plotting to persuade the world that arrested Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi was in a civilian rather than a military prison – and thus not the victim of an army coup – have been sent by British lawyers to the UN, the African Commission on Human Rights and the UK police.

Transcripts of the conversations two years ago, which have been newly authenticated, provide valuable evidence that the Muslim Brotherhood President of Egypt was deposed unconstitutionally in 2013, a fact that the country’s new military leader denies. They also make for uproarious reading, as generals and senior ministerial officials working for Field Marshal Abdul-Fattah al-Sisi argue over the need to construct an entire prison wing beside an army jail – with a civilian police signpost over the door to fool judges and lawyers.

Mr Morsi was held illegally at the Abu Qir naval base for several months after he was overthrown, according to the ex-President’s lawyers, before being moved to a civilian prison. At one point in the tapes, a man identified as General Mamdouh Shahin – Mr Sisi’s assistant defence minister for legal and constitutional affairs – asks an official to predate the day of Mr Morsi’s detention, adding: “I need you to mention a building, but we will not mention it is inside a military unit.”

There is then much discussion over the need to build a false prison adjacent to the military base and to station policemen rather than soldiers outside it, to give the impression that Mr Morsi is being legally held.

The tapes have been denounced by Mr Morsi’s presidential successor – Mr Sisi himself – as fabricated. But lawyers acting for the deposed President’s now-banned Freedom and Justice Party and Egyptian émigrés sympathetic to the Brotherhood say they have sent copies to the UN Human Rights Council and the African Commission of Human and People’s Rights (ACHPR) – to which Egypt is a signatory – after scientific examination proved they were genuine.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/egypt-coup-leaked-tape-proves-defence-minister-tried-to-conceal-morsis-true-location-in-military-prison-say-forensic-scientists-10066042.html


Now there is no democracy in Egypt, journalists imprisoned, secular protesters imprisoned, 100s sentenced to death without being allowed to defend themselves and worse.