These fears became reality when, on 17 October 2004, Abdel Rahman Mohamed Abdelrahim Al-Sharkawy was arrested at Peshawar New Ada bus stop by members of the Pakistani Inter Service Intelligence (ISI) forces and the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). He was detained in an ISI building for 14 months, during which time he was severely tortured. This included being hung by the wrists, beaten unconscious, electrocuted, and receiving threats against his family. A number of interrogation sessions by CIA agents followed. During this time, Mr Al-Sharkway was kept in solitary confinement for four months, and restrained in shackles during the entire period. On 20 November 2005 he was forcefully transferred to Egypt by the CIA and ISI.
Rendition to Egypt, incommunicado detention
After his transfer to Egypt on 20 November 2005, Abdel Rahman Al-Sharkawy was held incommunicado for one month and was then transferred to an State Security Intelligence (SSI) building where he was detained for two weeks. He eventually learned that he was being held in the SSI headquarters an underground building in Madinat Nasr, Cairo. Alkarama has been informed of various torture-related cases hailing from this secret SSI detention center in Madinat Nasr. During this period, he was detained in inhumane conditions, severely tortured and threatened that his family would be harmed if he did not confess to information regarding his father.
Eventually on 4 January 2006 he was taken to the SSI building in Lazoghli square, downtown Cairo. He was blindfolded and chained by one hand to the wall in front of an interrogation room and forced to listen to the screams emanating from the room. On 16 January 2006, he was released despite never having been presented before a judge, nor having received any formal charges.
Second Arrest
A few years later on 27 January 2008, Abdel Rahman Al-Sharkawy was abducted from Al-Esaaf square in central Cairo by agents of the SSI, blindfolded, handcuffed and thrown into an unmarked car. He was again taken to the SSI building in Madinat Nasr where he was stripped naked, beaten and electrocuted. He was once again interrogated about information concerning his father and told to stop giving information to human rights organizations. On 16 February 2008, Mr Al-Sharkawy was released.
Alkarama addressed the case of Mr Al-Sharkawy to the Special Rapporteur on the promotion of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism on 8 December 2009. Mr Al-Sharkawy's case provides first hand evidence to substantiate the concerns expressed in the Special Rapporteur's report on Egypt in October 2009. The report states that "the Special Rapporteur urges the Government to ensure that each person brought to Egypt is held in officially recognized places of detention from the moment of arrival, and has prompt and regular access to judicial authorities, a lawyer of his/ her own choice and medical examinations by doctors." In the case of Mr Sharkawy, these rights were never respected.
Al-Sharkawy's father's extraordinary rendition from Pakistan in 1994
Abdel Rahman Al-Sharkawy's transfer from Pakistan to Egypt is in fact part of a perplexing family history of extraordinary rendition - Mohamed Al-Sharkawy, his father, was arrested in Pakistan in 1994 and transferred by force to Egypt where he was severely tortured at the hands of the SSI. He is still detained unto this date despite more than 15 court orders for his release. The Working Group on Arbitrary Detention rendered Opinion 3/2007 deeming his detention as arbitrary. Despite this Opinion being sent to the Egyptian government, Mohamed Abdel Rahim Al-Sharkawy remains detained, and is currently suffering from health problems.
The subject of extraordinary rendition has received considerable media attention in the last year as UK have admitted to playing a part in the renditions with US in Iraq and UK MPs have now sued the CIA over rendition secrets. In any case, renditions represent a growing concern amongst human rights defenders as the subject becomes more and more exposed in the light of judicial proceedings in the UK and the United States.