A fact-facting committee recently reported that a top police official was killed by a fellow officer during a jailbreak that took place at Fayoum governorate’s Qatta Prison on 29 January. Major General Mohamed al-Batran, head of the Interior Ministry’s prisons department, was shot by a watch tower policeman, said the report. The fact-finding committee was formed by the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights.
The report, which was issued in a press conference on Monday, relied on testimonies of eyewitnesses from prison guards and inmates.
The guards said that Batran was inspecting the prison that day when he heard of a jailbreak attempt, and that he managed to convince the inmates not to escape. However, after he went out to the prison yard, some 1500 inmates chased him and tried to leave the prison, compelling the prison guards to fire. In the process, the guards inadvertently killed Batran.
But the inmates said that an officer by the name of Essam al-Bassraty ordered a colleague of his named Gehad Halawa, who was in the watch tower, to shoot both the inmates and Batran.
Batran’s sister, Manal, said her brother called her on 29 January and told her that former Interior Minister Habib al-Adly set fire to the whole country, and that 18 detention facilities were opened for the inmates to escape.
“I then heard that he [my brother] went to the prison on that day and threatened to refer Bassraty to investigation for shooting the prisoners, which made Bassraty order Halawa to shoot him [my brother] with two bullets,” she added.
She also said that two guards named Sabry Hassan and Samir Abdel Sattar saw the incident and informed her of it, but later changed their testimonies before prosecutors.
Ihab Nagy, the Batran family representative, said the forensic report proved that Batran was shot from a high vantage point, which means he was shot from the tower and not by inmates in the yard.
About 23,000 of the nation’s 80,000 prisoners across Egypt are believed to have escaped or been set free shortly after the revolt against long-time President Hosni Mubarak erupted on 25 January.
It remains unclear how one-fourth of the nation’s prisoners managed to escape. At least 120 of them ended up dead.
The unrest at Qatta Prison broke out three days after the start of the uprising, when some prisoners attempted to escape and guards responded with force. At least 65 prisoners are believed to have been killed in the jailbreak.
