Former president Mohamed Morsi’s aides were responsible for injuring protesters in December 2012, according to new testimony by a number of army officers and security chiefs in charge of securing the Ithadeya presidential palace, when at least 10 people were killed.
The testimonies came in closed court sessions in September 2014 and were published by Al-Masry Al-Youm Sunday and Monday. The statements of a total of seven security officers imply Ahmed Abdul Aty, the director of Morsi’s office, and the deputy chief of staff Assad el-Shikha played a major role in the violence.
Morsi and 14 of his aides are accused of assaulting protesters and killing two, including a journalist, and inciting violence through mobilizing their supporters to enter clashes with protesters the night of Dec. 5, 2012.
Eyewitnesses said Morsi’s aides attempting to hold some of the injured protesters hostage inside the palace as security guards from the Ministry of Interior and the army refused. The next court hearing in this case will be held by the Cairo Criminal Court on Oct. 11.
The eyewitnesses included Head of the General Police at the Presidency Ahmed Ibrahim Ismail and Central Security Chief at the Presidential Palace Osama Hussein el-Gendy. Ismail said the protests started on the night of Dec. 4 and protesters were not armed nor tried to break in to the palace.
Ismail then stated the presidency held an emergency meeting Dec. 5, and the president and his aides were advised not to disperse the protest by force, but that the Muslim Brotherhood leaders were inclined towards using force, despite that Morsi had not given such orders explicitly, according to the testimony in Al-Masry Al-Youm.
“We left the palace following the meeting around 3 p.m. I later saw on TV that Brotherhood affiliated groups had dispersed the protest at 8 p.m. and after calls to the forces securing the palace it was reported that Shikha was moving security forces to Roxy, near the palace to protect MB supporters,” Ismail said in the testimony published Sunday.
“Shikha demanded security forces to disperse the protests by force on Dec. 5 but security leaders advised against it,” stated another eyewitness, Labib Radwan Ibrahim, an army officer who was part of the presidential security guards.
“Shikha asked one of the officers under my responsibility to let him take in a few of the injured to question them inside the palace, in front of Gate 3 but the officer told me he had refused to let him in,” stated Khaled Abdul Hamid, an army officer in charge of watching security camera screens.
Walid Fathy Ibrahim, an army officer who was present at the palace, said “at 8 p.m. a man approached him and said Shikha’s people wanted to put ‘an arrested group’ of protesters in the palace and I told him that was forbidden.”
Gendy, who used to manage the president’s meetings and was in charge of securing the visitors to the palace, said he was not present during the incident. He said, however, that Morsi left the palace after the security meeting around 3 in the afternoon, but there were reports that Shikha Abdul Aty had remained nearby the palace.
Meanwhile, Abdul Aty was seen around 8.30 p.m. leading a group of people seizing a protester, violently beating him and asking him who was paying him to come to the protests, according to the testimony of Sayed Rashwan Radwan, army officer and worked in the security in the palace, reported Al-Masry Al-Youm.
Radwan said the group tried to drag the victim inside the palace but he stopped them, and tried to intervene to have him handled to by security forces but Abdul Aty told him to “stay out of it.”
Army officer Yasser Hassan Oweida was among security forces in Mirghany St. near the palace and witnessed clashes between anti-regime and pro-regime supporters. He said he saw a group of people led by Abdul Aty beating a man and taking him towards Gate 4 of the palace.
Oweida said that some MB groups came to the protests around 3.30 p.m. They were not armed, he stated, but as soon as they came they started attacking protesters’ tents and removing their slogans written on the wall by painting over them.
The testimonies imply that Morsi and his aides were facing trouble aligning security forces to act against protesters, which pushed them to take matters into their own hands, as confirmed in the testimony of the chief of presidential security guards Mohamed Ahmed Zaki last April.
A copy of the investigations was published by Dotmsr news website Oct.1. Zaki verified that until Dec. 5, Morsi had avoided ordering the use of force. After the clashes which led to escalation among protesters in the following days, Zaki said that Morsi’s speech had changed and he had ordered the shooting of anyone who tries to break into the palace.
“I was also receiving calls from security source, saying that cars loaded with weapons have arrived near the palace location,” Zaki added in his statement.
Zaki also testified against Shikha who, after failing to convince security forces to use force, told Zaki in a phone call “we will take matters into our own hands and we will be able to disperse the protest.”
Protests had erupted against Morsi in December, in objection to a presidential decree he had issued in November 2012, amending the constitution by adding articles that protected his decisions as a president from any judicial or other objections or challenges.
According to the decree, no power could dissolve the committee in charge of drafting a new constitution after the Supreme Council of Armed Forces had suspended the constitution from the regime of Hosni Mubarak after the January 25 Revolution of 2011.
The committee was designed by members of the parliament, who had all been Muslim Brotherhood members at the time.
On Dec. 8, 2012, Morsi changed the decree and included the re-establishment of the committee.
