Millennium murders

CHRISTIAN SOLIDARITY WORLDWIDE

For immediate release

January 27 2003

FAMILIES OF MURDERED EGYPTIAN CHRISTIANS STILL AWAIT JUSTICE FOR MILLENNIUM MURDERS

The families of the 21 victims of inter-religious violence in El-Kosheh, Upper Egypt, heard today they would have a further wait for justice.

21 Christians and one Muslim were killed in violence which broke out in January 2000, the worst massacre of Egyptian Christians in decades. An earlier verdict which acquitted the 96 murder suspects was overturned and a retrial, which began in May last year, was due to have given its verdict today.

Amid heavy security in a session which lasted only five minutes, Judge Lotfy Suleiman announced the postponement to February 27 this year at Sohag Criminal Court. Contrary to expectations, not one of the 96 defendants was in court.

Egypt’s Coptic Christians have expressed their disappointment at today’s events.

Mamdouh Nakhla, a lawyer and General Manager of Al Kalema Human Rights Centre in Cairo, represents several of the families of those murdered.

In a statement issued today, he said the lack of a verdict reflected current regional sensitivities: “This delay is primarily due to political and social considerations, as the general environment is not suitable for pronouncing such a verdict, due to the tense and volatile situation in the Middle East in general.” He went on to say that he hoped the verdict in February would be “satisfactory to all parties concerned.”

Bishop Wissa of Baliana Diocese, which includes the village of El-Kosheh, told CSW that the further delaying of this murder case was in itself “an injustice”. Referring to concerns that the postponement of the verdict reflected the current political climate, he commented: “A murder investigation should not be related to international politics.”

Mervyn Thomas, Chief Executive of Christian Solidarity Worldwide, said: “We share in the disappointment of all those concerned that the outcome of this trial has yet again been delayed.

“The killers of the 21 who were murdered are still at large, and must be brought to justice as soon as possible. Their families have already waited for too long.”

For more information, contact Richard Chilvers at Christian Solidarity Worldwide on 020 8949 0587 or 020 8942 8810 or email or go to http://www.csw.org.uk

NOTES TO EDITORS:

The violence in El-Kosheh, which erupted over the Millennium weekend, stemmed from a dispute between a Muslim trader and a Christian shop-owner on Friday December 31 1999. Muslim-owned kiosks and Christian-owned shops were damaged or destroyed that day as the violence escalated. While Saturday remained relatively quiet, Sunday saw the brutal murders of 21 Christians amid further violence. The lone Muslim killed was shot by a stray bullet in a neighbouring village. Nobody claimed that Christians killed him.

During the violence, local security forces either stood by passively or became actively involved in the attacks. It is thus widely believed that the local security police bear responsibility for the escalation of the violence.

The Egyptian Government tried to hide the sectarian nature of the incident. Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak blamed subversive foreign elements for instigating the fighting, saying that the culprits behind the clashes were “pushed from abroad”.

An Egyptian State Security Court acquitted 96 murder suspects on February 5 2001. The Sohag Criminal Court found only four defendants guilty, but only of lesser crimes connected with the massacre.

A penalty of 10 years imprisonment was handed down to Mayez Amin Abdel Rahim, a Muslim found guilty of possession of an illegal weapon during the riots. The other three, all Muslims, were found guilty of deliberately setting alight a truck trailer. One was sentenced to two years imprisonment and the other two were given one year sentences.

This verdict shocked and outraged Egypt’s Christian community. Coptic Bishop Wissa, whose diocese includes El-Kosheh, said that the verdict served as a green light for Muslims to kill Christians. Coptic Pope Shenouda III condemned the verdict and told reporters in Cairo at the time: “We want to challenge this ruling. We don’t accept it.”

The office of Egypt’s Prosecutor General, Maher Abdel Wahid, formally contested the Sohag court’s verdict on February 22 2001. “There is no doubt that 21 people were killed, and the killers must be brought to justice”, he told the Al-Ahaly newspaper on February 27.

Cairo’s Court of Cassation, the highest appeals court in Egypt, announced it would hear the appeal, and on July 30 it overturned the initial verdict and ordered a retrial which opened on May 7 2002.

The El-Kosheh massacre was Egypt’s worst clash in decades between the country’s predominantly Muslim citizens and Coptic Christians, who comprise approximately ten percent of the population. Dubbed ‘El-Kosheh II’, the riots were preceded by a controversial murder investigation in the same village 16 months earlier, when police were accused of rounding up and torturing over 1,000 Coptic villagers to force confessions, implicating a Christian as the culprit.

For more information, contact Richard Chilvers at Christian Solidarity Worldwide on 020 8949 0587 or 020 8942 8810 or email or go to http://www.csw.org.uk

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