U.S. Copts Association

CAIRO –  Egyptian police are trying to buy the silence of relatives of a man allegedly beaten to death in police custody in the hope of avoiding prosecution, an Egyptian rights organization claimed Tuesday.

Nasser Ahmed Abdullah died after police detained him in his village of Telbanah in the Nile Delta July 31, a security source said, with unnamed men subsequently offering Abdullah’s family money not to bring charges.

“The perpetrators are trying to have impunity and that is usually how they do it when an incident like this happens,” Gamal Eid of the Arab Network For Human Rights Information said.

Police had detained Abdullah in the hope of getting his brother to hand himself in for questioning on drug-related charges, the source said.

His family said that while in detention police allegedly tortured and beat him unconscious before taking him to hospital where he died.

The security source said that three Telbanah policemen had been suspended pending an investigation into Abdullah’s death after the family brought charges.

Media attention means that the case would now likely not be dropped even if the so-called blood money were paid, although any eventual punishment would be quashed.

According to rights group Amnesty International torture in detention is systematic in Egypt and, in the majority of cases, the perpetrators are not brought to justice.