Human rights group against police

CAIRO, Jan 13: An international human rights group said today it was concerned for the safety of a man who accused police of sexually assaulting him and was later jailed on charges related to the same incident.

Cairo minibus driver Imad al-Kabir trigggered an uproar after a video circulated on Egyptian blogs in November showed him lying on the floor, naked from the waist down, as an unidentified man sodomised him with a stick while others watched.

Egypt later detained two police officers over the incident on the tape which shows Kabir screaming as he is abused.

US-based Human Rights Watch said in a statement Kabir, who was sent to prison this week on charges linked to the same incident, now faced a ''new risk of torture''.

''The state has an obligation to protect Kabir as a witness in a torture case,'' said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch, after Kabir was sentenced to three months in jail with hard labour for resisting authorities and assaulting a police officer.

''Sending a torture victim back to the same place where he said he was tortured on charges brought by his alleged torturers raises enormous concerns about his safety,'' she said.

Kabir's Egyptian lawyer has said his client was tortured by police officers in January 2006 in a police station in the west Cairo suburb of Bulaq al-Dakrur after he tried to intervene in a dispute between the police and his brother.

Kabir came forward only after the tape had been widely circulated on the Internet. His lawyer said that after he filed a complaint with authorities the officers threatened him and his family.

The two policemen accused of torturing Kabir also appeared in court this week in the early stages of their separate trial.

The court refused to release them on bail.

Reuters