Egypt's armed forces participated in forced disappearances, torture and killings across the country – including in the Egyptian Museum – during the 2011 uprising, even as military leaders publicly declared their neutrality, according to a leaked presidential fact-finding report on revolution-era crimes. The report, submitted to the president, Mohamed Morsi, by his own hand-picked committee in January, has yet to be made public, but a chapter obtained by the Guardian implicates the military in a catalogue of crimes against civilians, beginning with their first deployment to the streets. The chapter recommends that the government investigate the highest ranks of the armed forces to determine who was responsible.
More than 1,000 people, including many prisoners, are said to have gone missing during the 18 days of the revolt. Scores turned up in Egypt's morgues, shot or bearing signs of torture. Many have simply disappeared, leaving behind desperate families who hope, at best, that their loved ones are serving prison sentences that the government does not acknowledge.
The findings of the high-level investigation, implicating Egypt's powerful and secretive military, will put pressure on Morsi, who assumed power from the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces after his election last June and has declined to prosecute any officers, despite allegations that some participated in abuse. They could also figure in the retrial of the toppled president Hosni Mubarak and his former interior minister Habib el-Adly, who are set to return to court on Saturday to face charges – perhaps supported by new evidence from the fact-finding committee – that they were responsible for killing protesters during the revolt.
"This chapter sheds light on new and extremely disturbing incidents that implicate the military in serious human rights violations," said Hossam Bahgat, the director of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights. "In particular, it uncovers new details on one of the most secret aspects of the 18 days of revolt that ended with the ouster of Mubarak: the role played by the armed forces in supporting Mubarak against protesters from the date they were deployed on 28 January 2011, until the first military statement was issued in support of the protesters on 10 February."
Among the incidents explored in the chapter, which focuses on the fate of those who went missing or were forcibly disappeared, investigators found that members of the armed forces detained an unknown but likely large number of civilians at a checkpoint along a highway south of Cairo who have never been seen again; detained and tortured protesters in the Egyptian Museum before moving them to military prisons, killing at least one person; and delivered to government coroners in the capital at least 11 unidentified bodies, believed to be former prisoners, who were buried in indigent graves four months later.
"The committee found that a number of citizens died during their detention by the armed forces and that they were buried in indigent graves, as they were considered unidentified," the report states, adding that authorities did not investigate, despite evidence of injuries and severe torture. "The committee recommends investigating the leaders of the armed forces about the issuance of orders and instructions to subordinates who committed acts of torture and enforced disappearance," it states.
One woman who gave testimony to the committee, Radia Atta, told the Guardian that her husband, Ayman Issa, disappeared after being held at a military roadblock on a major desert highway south of Cairo, near the pyramids of Dahshour. He was on his way to work on 30 January 2011, after leaving their home in Ashment, a rural village in the governorate of Beni Suef. Issa was probably arrested some time between 7.30am and 8am, Atta said, during a curfew set by the military.
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