Egypt and Syria

"If you want them to be tortured, you send them to Syria. If you want someone to disappear—never to see them again—you send them to Egypt." - Robert Baer, former CIA case officer

Lazogley State Security Intelligence Regional Headquarters

Located in Cairo, directly under the Ministry of Interior, this state security branch was reportedly where Ahmed el Maati was held and tortured for several weeks in July 2002.

He was brought to Lazogley in the back of the van, hidden lying flat covered in blankets and a spare tyre, after being released into SSI hands from the Mukhabarat al-Aama.

Ahmed was kept in the hallway for his first two weeks where, along with many other prisoners, he was forced to spend his time in an upright in a sitting position, awake, with beatings applied to those who could not take the strain and leaned sideways. There were interrogation rooms off the hallway, and he could hear other people being tortured and screaming.

Tora prison complex

Located 14 miles south of Cairo, this complex includes Istikbal Tora prison, Mazra Tora prison and its annex Mulhaq Mazra, the Leman Tora pison and its hospital and Scorpion high security prison. After his 2003 abduction from Italy, Egyptian cleric Abu Omar was tortured at Tora for over a year. He was stripped and placed in a room ‘so cold it felt my bones would snap’ and then moved to a boiling hot cell. Electric shocks were applied to his whole body, which caused lifelong difficulties with walking.

Ahmed Agiza and Muhammed al-Zari report that they were regularly subjected to electric shocks and other torture while being held in secret detention Mulhaq Mazra. Only after they had been imprisoned for over two years were Swedish authorities finally allowed to visit Agiza and al-Zari in February 2004. Agiza’s mother was also able to see her son, albeit with Egyptian security supervision.

Agiza’s mother states that it was clear that her son had been tortured; he had been unable to even pick up his arms to hug her, and that he was very slow, very tired and very weak. Al-Zari’s lawyer said that he had been electrocuted with wires attached to the most sensitive parts of the body: “They fasten electrodes to the most sensitive parts of the body. That is, genitals, breast nipples, tongue, ear lobes, underarms.”

Mohammed Zarai, former director of the Cairo-based Human Rights Centre for the Assistance of Prisoners, confirms that Agiza was repeatedly electrocuted, hung upside down, whipped with an electrical flex and hospitalised after being made to lick his cell floor clean.

Palestine Branch

Located in Damascus and run by Syrian Military Intelligence, this prison is known for its brutal interrogation methods. Among the worst was the ‘German chair’, said to have been learned from the Stasi, or East German secret service. A metal frame, with no backrest or seat, was used to stretch the prisoner’s spine to near breaking point.

Maher Arar was beaten on his back, buttock and feet with a two-inch thick electric cable, and heard the screams of other prisoners night and day. Ahmed Abou el Maati was forced to strip down to his shorts and lie blindfold with his hands cuffed to his legs behind his back. Ice water was then poured on him, while he was beaten with thick electric cables on his feet, legs, knees and back.

"So I’m lying on the floor, stomach down, legs up, hands behind my back, my cheek on the floor, and then all of a sudden, the closest thing that I could think of really, to describe it, was someone pouring lava on my soles. That felt like nothing I could describe. I flipped from the pain. I just flipped and grabbed my legs. Of course, during all that time it’s insults, calling me names, kicking me. So they got me back down, but now so that I don’t flip again, one guy stood over my head, one guy stood over my back, and the others were kicking me with their wooden soled shoes, and another guy was beating my soles with the cables he had…”