Posts Tagged ‘State Security Police Officers’

#Piggipedia – SS Lt. Colonel Hani Talaat رائد أمن الدولة هاني طلعت

From SS Officers

I haven’t had proper time to continue working on the Piggipedia files, but here is a face which popped up while I was reading some articles about torture, and I recalled having more pictures of the same officer on the SS Nasr City DVDs.

From SS Officers

SS Lt. Colonel Hani Talaat, also known as “Gaafar,” worked at the dissolved SS, as part of its “Central Investigations Unit.” His name was mentioned in the case of Sayyed Bilal’s death under torture, and reportedly still keeps his job at Homeland Security, the successor of SS.

From SS Officers

Piggipedia: SS directors of departments

The site 25 Leaks has published a 2008 State Security Police document, detailing some of the new departments established within the now dissolved apparatus. Tons of names are listed and I invite you to check them out and come forward with any more information you have about them. These officers who ran Mubarak’s gestapo should be held accountable and treated as the bosses of a criminal syndicate.

From SS Officers

Among the names on that list is SS General Rushdi el-Qamari who’s been profiled previously in the Piggipedia. It turned out that the man, who served and still serves as the interior ministry’s representative on the NTRA board and who oversaw the telecommunications shut down during the January uprising, was the director of a department in SS called “The General Information Department,” serving as the head of the “Telecommunications and Coding Group”.

Piggipedia: SS General Hisham Abu Gheida is out

From SS Officers

SS General Hisham Abu Gheida, the man who ordered my detention and torture in October 2000, has been forced to retire during the interior ministry’s reshuffle last month. So he’s to receive his pension and is not facing any charges after a long life of torture, spying, corruption and loyal service to Mubarak’s regime…

Piggipedia: SS General Mohsen Hafzi is out

From Piggipedia

General Mohsen Hafzi is no longer the governor of Daqahliya…

Piggipedia: Sherif el-Qamati شريف القماطي

Sherif el-Qamati is a State Security Police officer who worked at the Bureau of Counter-Communism and Human Rights Organizations, which was in charge of monitoring, arresting and torturing leftists and rights activists.

I first spotted Qamati as early as 2003, when he began showing up for our pro-Palestine and anti-Iraq war protests in downtown Cairo, in the company of the infamous torturer SS Lt. Colonel Waleed el-Dessouqi, both seen below in the picture I took in a pro-intifada protest, 28 September 2003…

Qamati was one the SS officers involved in the crackdown and trial of Revolutionary Socialist activists in 2003-4. He ritualistically attended our protests in downtown Cairo over the following years, monitoring activists with his cold dead eyes which always reminded me of Putin somehow.

During the Cairo Spring, when thousands of Egyptians took to the streets of Cairo in solidarity with reformist judges, Qamati was present in the protests and took part in the crackdown. On 25 May 2006, Qamati, with the help of the police force of Qasr el-Nil Station, kidnapped and sodomized left wing blogger Mohamed el-Sharqawi in custody. He was never held accountable despite repeated calls by local and internaitonal rights watchdogs.

Qamati continued to show up for our protests in 2007, but could hardly be noticed in the following years. Other than demonstrations, I also saw him in January 2007 working out in the FDA Gym at Zamalek’s Yamama Center. As of 2008, Qamati held the rank of Major, according to one of his relatives’ obituary published in Al-Ahram.

So where is this rapist today? Whatever happened to him? Is he part of the National Security Bureau, has he been recycled in some other police department, forced to retire, or what? Qamati must face justice and pay for his crimes.

Piggipedia: Photos of SS officers صور ضباط أمن دولة

The 25 Leaks website has published two group photos of State Security Police officers, seen below.

From Piggipedia

From Piggipedia

When I looked at the pix above, I noticed that three of those officers are already on the SS Nasr City DVDs, including Amgad Ezz el-Din…

From SS Officers

And Ayman el-Banna…

From SS Officers

As well as Ayman el-Rashidi…

From SS Officers

Piggipedia – SS General Mohsen Hafzi اللواء محسن حفظي

From Piggipedia

Appointed on 14 April 2011 as the governor of Daqahliya, former State Security Police General Mohsen Hafzi has been the target of ongoing protests by the citizens in the province, over his ties to the Mubarak’s regime and the dissolved SS.

It’s no secret General Hafzi was a close aid to Mubarak’s former interior minister, General Habib el-Adly. Though Hafzi reached his retirement age in 2009, he was among those generals who received the annual extension of service, decreed in person by Adly.

Hafzi spent a long years of his career in SS, before he went on to assume senior positions in the ministry’s departments in charge of tourism and business. By 2007, he was already the security director of Giza, and two years later he became the minister’s first assistant for security in both Giza and the 6th of October provinces.

Hafzi’s ties with his SS mentors never ceased for a moment throughout his career. A leaked 2007 SS document, for example, discusses his proposal to install CCTV cameras to spy on Cairo University students. Hafzi is also accused of involvement in the crackdown on, and the murder of, Coptic protesters in Giza’s Omraniya district in November 2010.

Instead of facing justice in a public trial after the revolution, Essam Sharaf‘s cabinet rewarded him with a promotion as a governor. This is another reason why we should be in Tahrir on 27 May…

Piggipedia – SS General Mohamed Refaat Qomsan اللواء محمد رفعت قمصان مهندس تزوير الانتخابات

From Piggipedia

Police General Mohamed Refaat Qomsan, is a former State Security Police officer and a close aid to SS General Ahmad Raafat who was in charge of the Islamists’ file at the dissolved apparatus.

Earlier in his career, Qomsan, who hails from the province of Menya, played a central role in the 1990s crackdowns on the Muslim Brothers, including the 1992 “Salsabeel Case” that targeted the Brothers’ financial assets, and later in the arrest of their activists in the professional syndicates. Qomsan also took part in the 1996 crackdown on rockers and metal heads, fabricating charges of “satanism” against them.

More importantly, Qomsan was later promoted by General Habib el-Adly, to become the director of the interior ministry’s “Department of Electoral Affairs”, which supervised the rigging of the elections of the lower and upper houses from 2005 to 2010. Qomsan reportedly has a brother by the name Mostafa, who is a Colonel at the Assuit Security Directorate, where he faces corruption allegations.

After the revolution, you’d expect Qomsan to face justice in a public trial for his crimes. Oh, well, he was rewarded another promotion last March by General Mansour el-Essawi, the “revolutionary” interior minister. Not only did Qomsan get to keep his position as the director of the Department of Electoral Affairs, but he was also given an additional department to lead, the ministry’s Department of Administrative Affairs.

The message the military council and Essam Sharaf’s cabinet are sending is clear: SS torturers and police officials who have been the backbone of the Mubarak’s dictatorship are here to stay…

SS General Hisham el-Dafrawi لواء أمن دولة هشام الدفراوي

From SS Officers

One of the photos I found on the Nasr City SS DVDs, was that of General Hisham el-Dafrawi, the infamous director of the dissolved agency’s “Students Bureau” who made his career out of tormenting student activists.

Rights lawyer Gamal Eid, of the ANHRI, during his student activism days at Ain Shams University in the late ’80s, came in contact with Dafrawi when the latter was still a junior SS officer:

الرائد ، ثم المقدم !!!! وحتى اصبح اللواء هشام الدفراوي أو : الظالم المبتسم
هو الاتخن بين ضباط أمن الدولة ، وأكثرهم ضحكا وابتساما و … وحشية.
مسئول عن مكتب طلاب جامعة عين شمس في الثمانينات ، وكان المسئول والمخطط لواقعة الاعتداء على الطلاب اليساريين والناصريين في سجن أبو زعبل خلال الانتفاضة الفلسطينية الأولى 1987، على يد الجماعات الإسلامية !
26طالب يساري وناصري ، يطلق عليهم نحو 280إسلامي متشدد في السجن وتصوير الواقعة انها مشادة بين سجناء!
نظرا لقدرته الفذة على القمع وتلفيق القضايا ، تدرج حتى أصبح مسئول مكتب الطلاب في جهاز مباحث امن الدولة.
ومنذ تولي مكتب الطلاب المركزي ، بدئنا نشهد عمليات تلفيق القضايا الجنائية ” ضرب ، سرقة ، أداب … الخ” للطلاب اليساريين خاصة بجامعة عين شمس والقاهرة.
فضلا عن إهدار وتزوير كل الانتخابات الطلابية ، سواء عبر الضرب والحرمان أو الاعتقالات للطلاب المعارضين.
هشام الدفراوي لا يزال حرا !!

From an SS Major in charge of Ain Shams University in the 1980s, Dafrawi ascended the ranks quickly to become the general in directing the “Students Bureau.” He oversaw the rigging of student union elections, arrests, beatings and torture of student activists, Gamal Eid wrote me.

Dafrawi also, according to Gamal Eid, orchestrated the assault on 26 leftist and Nasserist students in Tora prison, on the hands of Islamist prisoners in 1987. The students were detained part of a crackdown on the solidarity movement with the Palestinian intifada. The incident was portrayed as some riot or scuffle between prisoners, but Eid asserts it was Dafrawi who persuaded the Islamist militant prisoners to attack “those leftists.” Dafrawi, moreover, enjoyed framing leftist student activists in Ain Shams and Cairo universities in criminal cases, according to Eid.

Dafrawi’s name was also mentioned in a corruption case related to the education ministry. He was among police officers, including General Ahmad el-Azzazi, who received financial rewards from then Education Minister Ahmad Zaki Badr, allocated from the education ministry’s budget, after they helped put down protests by the ministry’s civil servants on 16 January 2011, roughly one week before the outbreak of the revolution. Why not? Dafrawi and Badr, it seems were good friends, and were even hanging out at Amr Diab’s concerts!

So where is Dafrawi today? Is he part of the newly founded National Security Bureau (NSB)? Is he still commanding those SS-turned-NSB who will continue spying on students in Cairo University and elsewhere?

In all cases, according to Eid of the ANHRI, Dafrawi has not been put on trial and remains a free man. And this is not acceptable.

Where is Azzazi?

From SS Officers

As we celebrate May Day, I was wondering whatever happened to SS Brigadier General Ahmad el-Azzazi, who headed the dissolved agency’s infamous “Trade Unions Bureau”. Why isn’t he on trial?