AP News, February 28th, 2007
An Egyptian-Canadian man accused of spying for Israel said Wednesday he confessed because he was tortured with electric shocks and his lawyer urged the court to throw out the confession.
Mohammed el-Attar, 30, is on trial in the State Security Emergency Court, and has pleaded not guilty. Three Israelis charged alongside el-Attar are being tried in absentia. If convicted, el-Attar and his co-defendants face a maximum life sentence, with hard labor.
During Wednesday's hearing, the judge allowed el-Attar to remove his handcuffs and meet with his attorney, Ibrahim el-Desouqi, outside of the iron cage where defendants usually are placed during court sessions.
The two met alone in a room in the back of the courtroom for 15 minutes. When they returned, el-Desouqi urged the court to drop the confession, saying it was extracted under torture.
The lawyer said el-Attar, who also holds Canadian citizenship, has requested to meet Canadian Embassy officials and Canadian media following the trial.
El-Attar shouted several times at the judge to let him talk about what happened to him, but was rebuffed.
Before his hearing Wednesday, el-Attar told reporters from inside the cage that the confession he gave police was "all fabricated lies" and accused the security officers of torturing him.
He said an officer forced "me to sign a statement after electrocuting me and forced me to drink my urine. I was being tortured for four weeks in solitary confinement."
According to prosecutors, el-Attar confessed to spying for Israel and gave a detailed account of his role in collecting information about Egyptians and Arabs living in Turkey and Canada in return for money. He also received instructions from the three Israelis, said to be intelligence officers, to recruit Christian Egyptian immigrants in Canada using money and sex.
The alleged confession, published earlier this month in independent and government newspapers here, claimed el-Attar fled Egypt in 2001 and sought asylum with the U.N. refugee agency offices in Turkey after he was sentenced to three years in prison for bank fraud.
The confession also alleged that el-Attar converted to Christianity in Istanbul and was allegedly sent to Canada, where he delivered more reports about Christian Egyptians.
"I am Muslim and all the allegations that I have changed my religion were lies," el-Attar said before Wednesday's hearing.
El-Attar also accused airport security officers of stashing drugs in his baggage and said that he had "never been to Israel and will never go there."
The judge adjourned the trial until March 26.
Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev has said that Israeli authorities learned about the case from the media.
"We have no knowledge whatsoever of these allegations or of the people involved," Regev said recently.
In Canada, Foreign Minister Peter MacKay said the government has sought "assurances, as we do in all cases when we have Canadians in custody, that they're being treated in compliance with international standards."
El-Attar, a former student at the Islamic Al-Azhar university in Cairo, was arrested on Jan. 1 as he returned from abroad to visit his family in Egypt.
Rights groups say that in Egypt, torture, including sexual abuse, is routinely conducted in police stations and prisoner interrogations. The government denies systematic torture, but has investigated several officers on allegations of torture. Some were convicted and sentenced to prison.
Three of el-Attar's family members and two officials of the Canadian Embassy attended the trial Wednesday. All declined comment.
Last week, Egyptian authorities asked Interpol to arrest the three Israelis involved in the case, accused of collaborating, recruiting and instructing el-Attar in espionage. The state-run news agency MENA identified them as Daniel Levi, Kemal Kosba and Tuncay Bubay.
