Egypt denounced the cremation of an Egyptian citizen's body in Germany following his death in a hospital in Essen after an alleged suicide attempt.
Egypt's foreign ministry said in a statement that it condemns the cremation of the body of Mohamed Abdel-Fattah El-Naggar, who passed away on 22 June, without coordinating with the Egyptian envoy, adding that cremation conflicted with the deceased's religious background, which mandates burial.
The statement said the Egyptian side should have been given the opportunity to examine the body to investigate the circumstances surrounding his death.
According to the statement, German authorities said that El-Naggar had signed a request stating that the Egyptian consulate in Frankfurt should not be notified that he was arrested last February following a theft attempt at a store.
The German authorities added that El-Naggar asked in his "farewell letter" that he wrote before his alleged attempted suicide on 16 June that his body not be returned to Egypt, and that he did not want any emergency contacts to be notified of his death.
The requests by El-Naggar led German authorities to finalise the cremation process after no one stepped forward to claim the body. The remains were buried in the city's graveyard.
Egypt's foreign ministry added that it has decided to dispatch its Egyptian consul to Essen on Thursday to meet representatives from the office of the German prosecutor-general to review all papers and documents related to the situation, as well as investigate the authenticity of the papers and the will that the Egyptian man signed prior to his death.
The statement comes only days after Egypt's envoy in Berlin received an official letter from the German foreign ministry stating that El-Naggar had attempted suicide.
Cairo had earlier demanded a swift probe be carried out by German authorities into the incident, saying that its envoy in Berlin requested "official clarification" on the incident following reports by local media that El-Naggar was tortured to death in police custody.
Germany's foreign ministry has said that initial investigations showed that the death of the Egyptian national did not result from "any criminal wrongdoing."
El-Naggar's family claims that their son was tortured to death by German police, and that Egyptian authorities were not informed of his arrest.
Egypt's foreign ministry said its consular sector was in ongoing contact with El-Naggar's family for updates regarding his death to ensure that the procedures were conducted properly.
