Egyptian court issues verdict to prosecute Israel

CAIRO — On Jan. 21, Egypt’s High Administrative Court issued a final verdict forcing the Egyptian government to prosecute Israel internationally for committing acts of violence and torture against Egyptian prisoners of war during the 1956 and 1967 wars. The verdict brought back to the forefront Israel’s crimes against hundreds of Egyptian prisoners of war more than half a century ago and raised questions about whether Cairo will abide by the verdict.

In 2001, released Egyptian soldiers who survived captivity and the families of deceased soldiers filed a lawsuit with the State Council, asking the Egyptian government to prosecute Israel internationally and give them their wasted rights due to the torture in Israeli prisons in the wake of the wars. Egyptian prisoners of war were caught during the attacks between Israel on the one hand, and Egypt, Syria and Jordan on the other, on Egyptian territory in 1956 and 1967. Today, 16 years later, the court has ruled in their favor.

Nasser Amin, the director of the complaints’ office at the National Human Rights Council and lawyer at the International Criminal Court (ICC), said in a press statement Jan. 21, “The verdict forces the Egyptian government to take judicial measures against Israel and reflects Egypt’s slackening in this regard, calling for legal measures to hand over the criminals to justice.”

On Jan. 23, Egypt’s El-Watan newspaper published documents that the government had given to the court before the ruling. They read, “Between 1995 and 2007, Egypt called on Israel to investigate the crimes that Israeli soldiers committed during the two wars and tried to regain the rights of the prisoners of war. But Egypt’s Foreign Ministry faced difficulties at the time in getting sufficient evidence to prove the occurrence of the crimes.”