Egypt Court Jails Three Police In Abuse Case

International and local rights groups say torture is widespread and systematic in Egyptian jails and police stations.

An Egyptian court has convicted and jailed three police officers for beating a prisoner in the port city of Alexandria and humiliating him by forcing him to wear women's clothing in public, judicial sources said on Saturday.

The court convicted Yusri Ahmed Issa, an officer, of torture and of assaulting the prisoner's honour, and sentenced him to five years in jail. Two other lower ranking policemen were sentenced to a year each.

The sources said the police officers had forced Ibrahim Abbas, who was then suspected of theft, to put on women's clothing and walk in the streets of Alexandria on Egypt's northern Mediterranean coast in April 2006. They also beat him with batons inside the police station, the sources said.

International and local rights groups say torture is widespread and systematic in Egyptian jails and police stations. They say most abuse cases never make it to court, and torture convictions resulting in jail time are relatively rare.

Egypt has come under increasing public scrutiny in recent years over the treatment of detainees. Rights groups say the abuse can include electric shocks and beatings.

Egypt says it opposes torture and prosecutes policemen against whom it has evidence that they tortured.

The court ruling came two months after a Cairo court sentenced two policemen to three years in prison for torturing a minibus driver in a case that sparked public outrage in Egypt and drew international criticism.

In that case, Captain Islam Nabih and Corporal Reda Fathi were convicted after Egyptian Internet blogs widely circulated a covertly recorded video of an incident in which a man was sodomised with a stick.

The U.S. State Department in an annual report published in March cited Egypt as one of several countries where observance of human rights had deteriorated in 2006 and said violations there included "severe" cases of torture.