Sweden: It is time to remind ourselves and the Swedish government of the case of the two Egyptians – 21 years later, we are on the same road.
In its bid to join NATO, Sweden has begun deporting kurdish asylum-seekers to Turkey, where they face imprisonment and torture. The Swedish Observatory for Human Rights Information is concerned about the current deportations from Sweden to Turkey and the Swedish government’s continuous violation of international law. SOHRI urges the Swedish government, the Migration Agency, courts and prosecutors to ensure that Sweden lives up to international human rights commitments in its handling of cases that may lead to deportations of refugees and asylum-seekers.
Sweden has an obligation under the principle of non-refoulement not to bring any person to a country where the person risks torture or inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment. This also applies to people who have not been granted protection status by Sweden. Sweden is regularly criticised by the European Court of Human Rights and the UN for acting in violation of the principle of non-refoulement.
Therefore, we the Swedish Observatory for Human Rights Information, finds it essential to remind both the current Swedish government and the Swedish public of the case of the two Egyptians: Ahmed Agiza and Mohammed Alzery.
The case of the two Egyptians
Like these days, 21 years ago, on December 18, 2001 - Ahmed Agiza was waiting for the bus on his way home from a Swedish language (SFI) course when suddenly a car drove up to him and plain clothes policemen got out of the car and approached him. On the same day, December 18, 2001, other policemen appeared at Mohammed Alzery's workplace outside Stockholm just as he was talking to his lawyer about the status of his asylum application.
For Agiza and Alzery, this marked the beginning of many years of hell for the two refugees from Egypt. The men were eventually taken to Bromma Airport in Stockholm where they were handed over to CIA agents. Their clothes were cut up and torn, they were given tranquilizers stuffed up their anus, dressed in overalls and given hand – and foot shackles, blindfolds and hoods. Then they were taken barefoot in the December cold to the plane, a private plane chartered by the CIA, which would take them to the country they feared most at the time to be returned to - Mubarak's Egypt. A kidnapping approved by the Swedish government, and carried out with the help of Swedish police. The Swedish government-accepted the handover to Egyptian security and military intelligence which involved unimaginable torture and cruel and inhumane treatment. Sweden relied on a promise from Egypt's leadership that the men's rights would be respected in the event of a return. But that promise wasn't worth the paper it was written on.
The deportation of Ahmed Agiza and Mohammed Alzery 21 years ago is one of the worst Swedish legal scandals of recent decades. Yet, to this day, no one has been held responsible for the handover or the torture and the abuses on Swedish soil, despite the fact that many human rights organisations have demanded it, including the UN Human Rights Committee.
Ahmed Agiza and Mohamed el-Zery are two Egyptian citizens who claimed asylum in Sweden (in 2000 and 1999, respectively). Both men had, separately, been accused by the Egyptian regime of membership in violent Islamist organisations, and were subjected to repeated harassment and arrest by the Egyptian security forces. Both men allege that they were tortured while in detention in Egypt in the 1980s. Agiza and el-Zery left Egypt in 1991, and each sought refuge in other Middle Eastern countries, moving on when it looked as though they may be returned to Egypt. By 2000, both had made their way to Sweden, and made formal applications for asylum, based on the fact that they would be detained, tortured and even executed if returned to Egypt (Agiza had been tried in absentia for terrorist activity, found guilty, and given a 25 year sentence).
Both men were questioned by Swedish Security Police (Sӓpo) and placed under surveillance. In October 2001, Sӓpo recommended to the Migration Board that their applications be rejected ‘for security reasons’. The Migration Board concluded that both men may have a right to be protected under asylum law and, given the conflicting views, referred the case to the Ministry for Foreign Affairs for final determination.
On 12 December, a senior Swedish official met with a representative of the Egyptian government to determine whether the men could be returned to Egypt without violating Sweden’s international obligations. In short, the Swedish government was seeking ‘diplomatic assurances’ that he would not be subjected to torture or other inhuman treatment of punishment, or indeed, the death penalty. On 17 December, Sӓpo presented their case for expulsion to the Foreign Minister, Anna Lindh, and outlined the two alternatives for transport. According to Sӓpo officers present at the meeting, as well as internal memorandum drawn up by the agency in 2002, Lindh gave approval to the use of the CIA for the expulsion. This explicit approval by the Foreign Minister was later confirmed by Arne Andersson, Sӓpo’s Administrative Director, when testifying to the Swedish Parliament’s Standing Committee on the Constitution.
After this meeting, Sӓpo contacted the CIA, and met US officers at Bromma airport at lunchtime of 18 December. It was agreed at this meeting that the Americans would conduct their own security checks of the two men, in a police room at the airport, and that US agents would take charge from there. Room on the flight was negotiated for Sӓpo officers, after the Americans had initially denied them space.
In the afternoon of 18 December 2001, the Swedish Government formally rejected the asylum applications for Agiza and el-Zery, and requested Sӓpo to expel the two men to Egypt immediately. The men’s lawyers were not informed, and they were denied the opportunity to challenge the decision before an independent body. Both men, who had been under surveillance, were arrested separately and driven to Bromma airport, arriving around 8.30pm. By 9pm, the CIA aircraft had landed at the airport, and a security team of seven or eight people – all of whom were masked – disembarked and were escorted to the waiting cars.
An investigation carried out by the Swedish Parliamentary Ombudsman in 2004 and 2005, in order to establish ‘what occurred at Bromma airport and the manner in which the expulsion of the two Egyptians was carried out’, has established an account of the treatment of these two detainees during the preparation for the flight and the flight itself. This included both men being subjected to having their clothes cut to pieces, full cavity searches, the insertion of anal suppositories, being dressed in diapers and overalls, hooded, handcuffed and strapped to a mattress on the aircraft. Throughout, the security team did not speak at all, communicating instead with hand signals.
EGYPT
On arrival in Egypt, the two men were handed over to Egyptian officials, and driven off in a transit bus. Agiza was held incommunicado for the first five weeks. He was repeatedly tortured, including through electric shocks, death threats, and threats of sexual abuse against his female relatives. He was also denied access to legal representatives. The arrangements for monitoring the ‘diplomatic assurance’ that he wouldn’t be tortured was found by the UN Committee Against Torture to be inadequate, with no visits in the first five weeks, no unannounced visits, and no private visits. Indeed, there were sometimes up to 10 other people in the room, including the Egyptian prison guards. In April 2004, Agiza was convicted and sentenced to 25 years in prison for membership in an organisation banned under Egyptian law, in a trial that failed to comport with universally recognised fair trial standards. Human Rights Watch, observing the trial, noted ‘a catalogue of fair trial violations’, including the use of secret evidence by the military court and the inability for Agiza to consult adequately with his lawyers or to call witnesses. It also noted that Agiza’s allegations of torture in detention were ignored at the trial, with the request for an investigation denied. In fact, after testifying in court regarding his torture, Agiza was approached by an officer of the Egyptian security forces and warned not to mention it again.
El-Zery was detained at the Tora prison. He remained blindfolded until 20 February 2002, and then only had the blindfold removed during visits by the Swedish Ambassador. These visits were conducted as part of the ‘diplomatic assurance’ monitoring regime, although complaints by el-Zery to the ambassador did not make it any further, with the Swedish Secretary of State assured that there continued to be no risk of torture. Moreover, although the visits by the ambassador were to occur monthly, the meetings were not conducted alone; Egyptian personnel were always present and taking notes.
Early in 2002, el-Zery was moved to a wing of the prison run by Egyptian Security Services, rather than General Intelligence, and was subjected to five weeks of interrogation and torture, including electric shocks to the genitals, nipples and ears. He was forced to confess to crimes he had not committed. He was moved again on 20 February 2002 to a correction centre where he was held in a cell measuring 1.5 by 1.5 metres. He was held there until the second week of December 2002. He finally learned of the reasons for his detention in late 2002: he was told that he was alleged to be one of 250 people who were members of a forbidden organisation, with respect to criminal proceedings that had been instituted in 1993. Many of the co-accused had already been sentenced to death and executed.
On 27 October 2003, el-Zery was finally released without charge. Agiza, however, was not released until 2 August 2011.
Aftermath
The Swedish Chief Parliamentary Officer, Mats Melin, launched an inquiry in May 2004, reviewing the enforcement of the men’s expulsion from Sweden by the Security Police. He did not investigate the expulsion decision itself, or the diplomatic assurances, both of which were outside his remit. The review was published in March 2005, and found that Swedish officers ‘failed to maintain control of the enforcement, thereby allowing American officials free hands to exercise public authority on Swedish territory’ in a way incompatible with Swedish law. He also found that the enforcement was ‘carried out in an inhuman and therefore unacceptable manner’, and questioned whether it ‘constituted a breach of Article 3 of the European Convention’.
This investigation was complemented with one by the Swedish Parliament’s Standing Committee on the Constitution, which examined the legality of the Swedish Government’s decisions to expel the two men. Its report was published in June 2005, and concluded that the government violated its own laws in sending them to a country where there existed a substantial likelihood of torture.
In May 2005, in response to a petition filed by Ahmed Agiza in June 2003, the UN Committee Against Torture concluded that Sweden had violated Article 3 of the Convention Against Torture. It found, specifically, that ‘it was known, or should have been known… that Egypt resorted to consistent and widespread use of torture against detainees, and that the risk of such treatment was particularly high in the case of detainees held for political and security reasons’. Moreover, the ‘procurement of diplomatic assurances which, moreover, provided no mechanism for their enforcement, did not suffice to protect against this manifest risk’.
In November 2006, the UN Human Rights Committee similarly concluded that Sweden had violated multiple articles of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) in respect to the expulsion of Mohamed el-Zery. El-Zery had submitted a complaint against Sweden for alleged violations of articles 2, 7, 13 and 14 of the Covenant, and article 1 of the Optional Protocol.
In May 2007, Ahmed Agiza was included as one of three plaintiffs (later joined by two more), in a case filed against Jeppesen Dataplan alleging complicity in their rendition and torture. Ultimately, however, the case itself was not heard in court, after the US Government intervened, asserting ‘state secrets privilege’ and claiming that the litigation would damage national security interests. In arguing that the Government’s intervention should not be allowed to stand, Agiza’s lawyer, Anna Wigenmark, submitted a declaration in December 2007 outlining the extent to which the facts of the case were already in the public record (discussion of which in court could therefore not be said to damage US national security).
Damages have been paid to both Ahmed Agiza and Mohammed Alzery and Ahmed Agiza has been granted a residence permit. But despite this, no responsibility has been demanded from those who were behind the decision and no legal proceedings have been held against those involved, unlike for example in Italy and Germany.
