Two Egyptian detainees die in police custody within 24 hours
Two Egyptian detainees have died in police custody within just 24 hours of each other, according to Middle East Eye on July 29th.
According to The Egyptian Network for Human Rights (ENHR), the first death was that of 21-year-old university student Ayman Sabry Abdel Wahab. He died on July 25th in custody at the Belqas Police Station in the Dakhalia governorate. The rights group said his death came after “a week of deadly torture.”
Wahab’s arrest sparked riots, with footage emerging of clashing protestors and security forces outside Belqas court. The ENHR said that he was arrested on July 19th while making his way to a barber shop.
He was then detained in Belqas Police station for several days, during which he experienced a “serious deterioration in his health” after being subjected to severe torture.
According to his family, he collapsed in front of prison guards during a visit on July 25th after he gave them a list of medication without explanation. He was neither transferred to a hospital for treatment nor provided with a doctor to examine his health. A similar case occurred in 2024, where a man tortured in police custody died after being denied medical care.
Wahab’s family was not officially informed of his death. Instead, they were notified by their lawyer early in the morning of July 27th.
His sister, who identified the body at the hospital, told ENHR that “his face was ruined, his body used to be white as cotton, but his whole dead body was blue.”
She continued by saying “my brother died from torture, and the ones who killed him work at Belqas Police Station.” She accused a senior investigations officer of being one of the torturers.
ENHR executive director, Ahmed Attar, stressed that the Wahab’s death is not a unique incident, but rather a “natural consequence of the unchecked power of the executive authorities, the absence of proper oversight and inspection by the public prosecution, and the continued application of the policy of impunity practiced by the Egyptian state”.
The second detainee to die in police custody was 25-year-old Karim Abdo Badr, who passed away on July 27th inside al-Saff Police Station in Giza governate.
The ENHR reported that he and his brother were arrested for allegedly trying to steal a tuk-tuk, however they are still trying to verify the cause of his death as the authorities have not yet released any additional information.
A former detainee said that conditions at the police station are “inhumane.”
“People are dying in there from the overcrowding, too many individuals in a small space, with no basic human care. The smell is unbearable, and contagious skin diseases are spreading due to poor hygiene and extreme heat,” he explained.
The ENHR have speculated that the harsh conditions “may have directly or indirectly contributed” to Badr’s death. It also revealed that he was buried on July 28th in the family cemetery.
The deaths occurred at roughly the same time another two men were forcibly disappeared by security forces after participating in a raid on state security headquarters to protest the Gaza blockade. Their families told Middle East Eye that they were fearing for the men’s lives.
Egyptian rights monitor the Committee for Justice (CFJ)Â released a report in May revealing that 15 prisoners have died in Egyptian custody so far in 2025, citing the most frequent cause of death as medical negligence.
Middle East Eye, Maghrebi.org, Committee for Justice
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