Rights group reveals Egyptian man died in prison after torture
A rights group revealed on June 23rd that an Egyptian prisoner died in 2024 after being subjected to torture by prison guards, according to The New Arab on June 24th.
Testimonies gathered by the Egyptian Network for Human Rights illustrated that Hossam Aboul Abbas Moustafa Morsi died on August 17th after being electrocuted and beaten for five hours by officers.
The rights group stated that Aboul Abbas was allegedly denied medical treatment after the torture. The 26-year-old man was transferred to Al-Wadi Al-Jadid prison in the Western Desert under two weeks before his death. His family was reportedly informed of his death on August 19th by security services, who did not disclose the cause of death.
Aboul Abbas’ death “does not reflect the full magnitude of the tragic reality experienced by thousands of criminals and political detainees in Al-Wadi Al-Jadid prison,” the rights group said, labelling it as “one of the worst and most cruel in Egypt”.
The organisation demanded an immediate and independent investigation into his death to hold the perpetrators accountable.
Aboul Abbas was arrested by Egyptian authorities on 2nd June 2024 and was subjected to enforced disappeared for six weeks before he was placed in pre-trial detention.
Following this, he was held at Kharga police station until he was transferred to Al-Wadi Al-Jadid prison on August 7th. Aboul Abbas was previously arrested after authorities found videos on his phone of detained Islamist politician Hazem Salah Aby Ismail and late preacher Abdul Hamid Kishk.
The Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms has recorded 4,253 cases of enforced disappearance by the authorities since President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi took power in 2014.
The rights group noted in April that over a dozen detainees had died in Egyptian prisons in 2025, with most of them being political prisoners. They identified the leading cause of death as “medical negligence.”
Amnesty International has stated that political detainees in Egypt are frequently subjected to cruel and inhumane conditions by prison officials, who also deny them access to medical care.
The New Arab, Maghrebi.org
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