The attorney general on Monday ordered an investigation into a local police department in the village of Demshalt in the Delta province of Daqahlia, where police are said to have taken four women hostage in order to compel a relative of theirs to turn himself in.
The families of the alleged hostages have lodged a formal complaint accusing local Chief Prosecutor Hamed el-Dessouqi of holding the four women since 28 October in the police station’s holding cell for men. El-Dessouqi, they claim, had ordered their detention in an effort to force their relative — Islam Abdel Salam, previously charged with murder — to turn himself over to the authorities.
"When my cousin was charged with killing someone named Ahmed Hamed, the police barged into the family home and took my mother, my aunt and her two daughters to the police station and held them there," said Mohamed Atta, a relative of the detained women.
El-Dessouqi, along with three other officers, was immediately referred to investigation by the attorney general’s office.
Translated from the Arabic Edition.
