MALLAWI, Egypt — Two Coptic Christians wrongfully arrested for killing a Muslim during the May 31 attack on Abu Fana monastery in Egypt have been tortured and sent to a detention camp so authorities can try to extract a false confession, their lawyer said.
Egyptian authorities sent brothers Refaat and Ibrahim Fawzy Abdo to El Wadi El Gadid Detention Camp near the Egypt-Sudan border Nov. 22. A week earlier they were bailed out pending their court case — but never released — and held in a Mallawi police station until their transfer to the camp.
The brothers’ attorney, Zakary Kamal, said the timing of the murder at the monastery rules out any possibility of the two Copts having committed it. Monks at Abu Fana say the Fawzy Abdo brothers were far from the monastery at the time of the attacks.
Security forces are detaining the brothers to blackmail the Coptic Church into testifying that the attack against Abu Fana monastery in Mallawi, Upper Egypt, was not religiously motivated, Kamal said. At the beginning of their captivity in June, police subjected the men to electric shocks eight hours a day for three days to try to force them to testify the monks were armed during the attack, sources said.
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