Sweden 'violated' torture treaty
Saturday, May 21, 2005 Sweden has been found guilty of violating the international convention against torture for deporting a terror suspect to Egypt. The UN said Sweden breached its duties when it extradited asylum seeker Agiza in December 2001.
Agiza, a former member of Islamic Jihad, was sentenced in his absence to 25 years in jail in 1998. He applied for asylum in Sweden three years later but was turned down on security grounds. He was handed over to US authorities who chained and hooded him and flew him to jail in Egypt.
Agiza's family claim he was subject to electric shock treatment and other abuses in the first weeks after being placed in Egyptian custody.
In its ruling, the committee said: "Egypt resorted to consistent and widespread use of torture against detainees and that the risk of such treatment was particularly high in the case of detainees held for political and security reasons."
Cf. the recently reported death of Ashraf Said Yusef, imprisoned in Egypt under suspicion of organising terrorist attacks on foreign tourists. Police informed prosecutors that their prisoner had become "very agitated and deliberately hit his head on the wall of his cell".