CAIRO (Middle East Eye) – The death of economist Ayman Hadhoud has been described as “suspicious” by a group of Egyptian and international rights groups, who reject the Public Prosecution’s conclusion that he had died of natural causes.
Hadhoud, a senior economic adviser to Egypt’s liberal Reform and Development Party, was arrested on 5 February and went missing. Then, on 9 April, his family was asked to collect his dead body from the Abbasiya Mental Health Hospital in Cairo.
After learning about Hadhoud’s presence in the hospital, his family said they suspected he had been killed, and feared a cover-up by the interior ministry was being planned.
A member of the family told Middle East Eye that he saw Hadhoud’s body with signs of beatings and torture, but he was then forced to delete the images from his phone.
Amnesty International said it saw leaked photos of his corpse, which “strongly suggests that Ayman Hadhoud was tortured or otherwise ill-treated before his death”.
On Monday, the Public Prosecution insisted that Hadhoud had died on 5 March of “hypotensive shock and cardiac arrest,” following its investigation of the case and an autopsy of the body.
“The prosecution examined his body and found no injuries, and called in a health inspector to conduct an external examination... which confirmed no criminal suspicion in his death, and police investigations confirmed no criminal suspicion in his death,” a statement by the Public Prosecution said.
This conclusion, however, was rejected by the family and human rights organizations, who accused the National Security Agency (NSA), Public Prosecution, and the Abbasiya Mental Health Hospital of concealing the truth behind Hadhoud’s death and detention.
“Evidence indicates criminal violations behind Ayman’s death, as he was alive on the evening of 6 February when he was arrested on charges of alleged theft,” nine rights groups said in a report.
According to the rights groups’ report, which matches information revealed by MEE earlier this week, Hadhoud’s family had lost contact with him since 5 February 2022, when he last met with his brother Omar.
An NSA officer named Yassin Mustafa summoned Hadhoud’s brother, Adel, to the Amiriya Police Station on 8 February and informed him that he was in the custody of the NSA, without revealing his location. The officer asked Adel about his brother’s workplace, studies and activities.
Hadhoud had expressed views against security services prior to his arrest, and believed that they intervened in politics in favor of the wealthy, the report said.