Judge Ahmed El-Shazly of Supreme Administrative court in Egypt

Egypt’s Supreme Administrative Court: The Egyptian government should demand 1956 and 1967 POWs rights

On Saturday, Egypt’s Supreme Administrative court made headlines once again when it rejected the Egyptian government’s appeal against previous administrative court order obliging it to demand the rights of the 1956 and 1967 Egyptian POWs officially.

Judge Ahmed El-Shazly
Judge Ahmed El-Shazly of Egypt’s Supreme Administrative court 

The Supreme Administrative court headed by honourable Judge Ahmed El-Shazly upheld the March 2008 Administrative court’s ruling obliging the Egyptian government to demand the rights of the Egyptian POWs in the 1956 and 1967 wars.

In 2001, a group of  Egyptian POWs families and ex-POWs represented by lawyer and 1973 war veteran Wahid El-Oksori filed a lawsuit in front of the Egyptian administrative court demanding the Egyptian government to investigate the allegations against the Israeli Defense Forces “IDF”.

In March 2008, the administrative court issued its court ruling obliging the Egyptian foreign ministry to investigate the allegations.  Following that court order, the Egyptian government represented in the State Lawsuits authorities

The Egyptian government represented in the State Lawsuits authorities appealed the court ruling in front of the Supreme Administrative court.

Only on 21 January 2018, the Supreme Administrative court made its final verdict rejecting the Egyptian government’s appeal and upholding the 2008 court ruling.

The State lawsuits authority claimed in its appeal that the Egyptian government did not fail its duty. It said that ousted President Mubarak demanded Israel to investigate the allegations of killing the Egyptian POWs in 1995 and that the Israeli government formed a fact-finding committee to investigate the matter. That alleged fact-finding committee finished its work in 1998 but did not share its results with the Egyptian government according to the government’s representative in court.

The State lawsuits authority added that the Egyptian foreign ministry followed the Shaked documentary in 2007 and raised the matter with Israel as well as the Red Cross.  The government’s lawyer added in its appeal that Camp David accords and suspected that the families of the POWs are related to the POWs in the first place !!

According to the Supreme Administrative court’s reasoning that the documents presented to it that the IDF committed war crimes against Egypt and the Arab military and that the Egyptian government failed in prosecuting Israel criminally as well in demanding compensation international for the victims. 

Head of Supreme Administrative court Judge Ahmed EL-Shazly made headlines last week when the Supreme Administrative Court rejected the appeal of the Egyptian government against the Administrative court ruling in April 2016 annulling the Egyptian Saudi deal to redraw the maritime deal, which placed the Red Sea islands Tiran and Sanafir under Saudi Sovereignty.

Ironically, the State lawsuits authority brought up once again the jurisdiction of the Supreme Administrative Court in its lawsuit just like Tiran and Sanafir.

There has been no reaction from the Egyptian foreign ministry about this court ruling yet.

The POWs case is back

This is my first post in 2011 . It is my first post after the Jan25th Revolution in Egypt , it is my first post after ousting Hosni Mubarak , the same man who ignored for 30 years the rights of our Egyptian POWs.

I wanted to write here during the revolution to show to the whole world how the former ousted president had no friend in the world  except the same man who killed our POWs in 1967 : Binyamin Ben Eliezer !! During the climax of the revolution last February almost all the leaders of the world did not talk to Mubarak and he did not dare to call them except Ben Eliezer !!

Mubarak and Ben Elizar
Old buddies !!

It is enough that his last call before stepping down was to Ben Eliezer !! Some will not like what I will say but how come Mubarak was an officer in the Egyptian army and headed our air forces once upon time !! Ben Eliezer killed our unarmed Egyptian POWs in 1967 and he does not deny it for God sake yet they seemed to be close friends to the level that Mubarak spoke to Ben Eliezer for 20 minutes in his last international call as a president !!

Anyhow Ben Eliezer can feel very sad for Mubarak but he has to be worried now because the Egyptian POWs case seemed to be revived again by the Egyptian revolution.

The Egyptian Arabic socialist party has demanded PM Sharaf and the supreme council of armed forces to implement the administrative court rule to demand a UN and security council investigation concerning the Israeli war crimes against our POWs during the Suez war , the six days war and 1973 war.

FM Nabil El-Araby has announced that Egypt is going to join the ICC at last , this great news means we can sue Israel in front of the ICC.

Despite we are busy in our revolution that has not finished yet , we have forgotten the rights of our fallen soldiers , Ben Eliezer should be very worried.

False Promises

In 1995 after the shameful confessions of IDF commanders of committing war crimes against our POWs in 1956 Suez War and what followed it affecting our mutual relations then , French Libération continued to cover the matter internationally revealing things we did not know about then back in Egypt for some reason. In August 1995 the French newspaper published a small newspaper based on an interview with an Israeli official , Elie Dayan who was the Israeli Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs with an unnamed Egyptian newspaper that Israel was ready to pay compensation to families of the 900 Egyptian prisoners massacred by Israeli soldiers during the wars of 1956 and 1967 and that those acts did not represent the Hebrew State…etc.

Here is the original article and its English translation.

I do not recall that interview but I believe the French newspaper could have quoted Al Ahram newspaper. It is very important statement for sure and I do not have to bet that in the original interview Dayan said the following : “Israel is ready to pay compensation for the 900 Egyptian prisoners if they were proven to be murdered by the IDF” because after few days we found in the same newspaper a small news saying that Shimon Perez , the new Prime minister then promised to open an investigation in to the matter in order to calm down the Egyptian angry public then despite the Israel’s Attorney General back then “Michael Ben-Yair” had ruled that there was no basis for prosecuting soldiers for wars crimes or offenses as he had described it in 1956 and 1967 war because of a 20 years limitation on homicide charges !! The attorney general did not considered the crimes against our POWs as war crimes !!

Here is the second article and its English translation

Al Jazeera International’s First Person:Egyptian POWs

This old video below goes back to 2007 in the 40th anniversary of the Six Days war and it shows  Ex-Sergeant Amin Ramadan who speaks about his experience in captivity at notorious Atlit along his friend and co-worker for 40 years Goma’a Hassan who is still suffering from physical injury hunting him down since the Atlit days. I talked about this video in 2007 as a report that was published in Al Jazeera international , I did not know that it was based upon a video that aired on the channel but it is never too late.

Ramadan and Gomaa

Ramadan who has become a kind of an activist for the 1967 POWs , is already suing the Israeli government among others for a just compensation on what they have seen and suffered on the hands of the IDF in 1967. His testimony is from the important living testimonies that prove the involvement of Ben-Eliezer in the mistreatment and abuse of our POWs against international laws.

They Were Not Murdered in Action But They Were Murdered in Capture

Many people in the world think that our soldiers and officers had been murdered in action during the six days war just like an army during a war , especially a defeated army , there is no argue in this but unfortunately many of our soldiers and officers had not be murdered in action but rather murdered in capture in the six days war.

First of all you must know that in 1967 the Egyptian army had just come out from the Yemen war exhausted , there was new recruitment process in the army , many young men from all around the country were dispatched to the front even without training or even receiving their uniforms.When the war broke and we seemed on the verge on a terrible defeat ,

inexperienced minister of war then Abdel Hakim Amar issued a withdrawal order that has been considered one of the most worst withdrawal ever issued in the modern military history. Without going in to too much details the withdrawal order was simply getting away from Sinai as soon as possible with no organization or defense plan at all. The sudden withdrawal plan by the way is from the X-Files in this war, there is no justification for why the Egyptian forces had to leave the peninsula without a single real fight despite they were capable of doing it and the officers were willing to do it.The forces had to leave everything behind them even weapons to be swift and move as quickly as they could to the second bank. Of course we are talking about Sinai in June , a hell in the desert especially with water and food running out.  It was a tough experience of being lost and chased especially there was no direction home in that vast desert.

In this unorganized withdrawal the IDF found a golden opportunity to destroy the Egyptian totally through hunting down the tired soldiers and officers who thought that it would not be the end of the world if they were captured but unfortunately it was for them. Many Egyptians who surrendered to the IDF in their way to Suez Canal were shot either in their place or in mess graves they were forced to dig  by their own hands according to eye witnesses from locals and survivors who managed to escape this hell. The Egyptian soldiers and officers thought that they would be treated like any POW around the world according to the Geneva conventions but of course they were mistaken.The policy of the IDF , in fact the Israeli regime then was to send a powerful message to Egypt that it was over , no more Egyptian army.

The people of Al Arish still remember very well in vivid details how the city from North to South drunk from the Egyptian blood of Egyptian soldiers and officers who were murdered while raising their hands up. The city is full of mess graves which the locals made for our men who were left to decay for days. This was just the tip of the ice-berg , you should only hear from the very few who were transferred to Atilt prison what hell really meant and how it was an ugly copy from the Nazi concentration camps to know what does it mean to be murdered in capture.

I do not know how we can’t considered pouring napalm over the walking withdrawn troops from flying jets as war crime !!??

I do not know how we can’t considered shooting in an execution style the withdrawn and surrendered troops as war crime !!??

What happened in the six days war from war crimes against the Egyptian army is an outrageous crime against humanity and it kills me that our regime pretends as if it never happened despite all the evidences that could send help of the Israeli commanders and officers  in 1967 behind bars for war crimes !!??

FYI the Egyptians who were considered missing in action in the six days war were more than in any other war we fought in the 20th century. Up till now there are thousands of Egyptian families who do not what exactly happened to that young uncle in the black and white photo hanging on the wall of their granny’s chamber except that he was in Sinai during the six days war and that he will never come back again !!

The court adjourns the Shaked Case again !!!

It is not something unexpected , in fact it is expected in the time of a regime that sit silently over the frequent attacks against our officers on the borders from the IDF , why would this regime care for POWs who were brutally murdered in 1967 in a cold bold. The North Cairo Court has  decided to adjourned the Rush Shaked case again for the next 12 October 2009

You won´t believe why the case has been adjourned again ; the judge did not come and thus from the administrative point the case should be adjourned !! That time there were new families joining Abu-Raya family in their quest to sue the Israeli government.

I do not know till when this case will be adjourned in this way.

Does it surprise anyone ??

Does it suprise anyone in the world that the IDF would start an investigation concerning misconduct (( war crimes )) in the war of Gaza and not to reach to a  condemnation to the IDF officers and soldiers conduct ???

Well according to the investigation panel announced by the IDF,all those claims of misconduct are just rumors !!!???

I am not surprised really because the Masada army never does anything wrong !!! All that WP used was not a misconduct in fact it should be used against the civilians taking shelter in UN buildings !!!!!

This is an expected result ,already this investigation was announced to enhance the ugly image of the IDF in the world after the Gaza war.

More from the huffington post.com

This is the UN not the Arab League

I do not know what the Pro-Israeli war machine will say this time !!?? This is a UN report not an Arab league report or amnesty international report !!
This is a historical report for sure , I do not recall that the UN has ever exposed Israel like that before.
Gaza needed this report from a very long time.
Of course Israel has already attacked the UN human rights council using big words from the type "The UN supports terrorists ..etc.
The UN human rights council called in its historical report for an urgent end to the inhuman siege ,of course Israel won’t listen but shall the Egyptian regime listen to the UN request !!??
Now to all those nationalists who wondered why no criminalized Israel in the west like Al-Bashir : This is the same human rights council that exposed Al-Bashir.
BY the way where is the Arab league war crimes investigation delegation ??

Important Petition

I know that you probably think that online petitions are useless but they are not because I believe they are another form of expression available to the people around the world.

This petition is special , it is an international petition to the UN General Assembly to set up a special international penal court to try Israeli war crimes, notably in the Gaza Strip.

It is published by the French Palestine Solidarity Association, I hope that more people sign this petition to show that we have not forgotten what happened in Gaza and we want justice.

What happened in Gaza was a war crime by all means.

Thanks to dear friend Ségolène Liger

Spread the website please