Al-Sisi fortified them and then deported them one by one ... Where are the accused in a fourth crime?

Months after the Rabaa al-Adawiya and al-Nahda massacres that took place on August 14, 2013, in which hundreds of people were killed and wounded, video recordings of the then army commander, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, were leaked, in which the army and interior officers reassured that no officer involved in the killing or injury would be held accountable. The protesters.

Indeed, none of the killers of the peaceful sit-ins in the Rabaa and al-Nahda squares in eastern and western Cairo was held accountable, and no independent investigation was conducted about them. Rather, what happened was on the contrary, as the sit-in protesters and organizers were tried and convicted, while fourth cases were known to the media.

Human Rights Watch had charged senior Egyptian officials with likely “crimes against humanity” during the dispersal of sit-ins carried out by supporters of the late President Mohamed Morsi, upholding his legitimacy and objecting to the military coup carried out by his then defense minister, Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, on July 3, 2013. Note that the latter became later and until now President of Egypt.

A report released by the organization entitled "The Rabaa Massacre and the Mass Killing of Protesters in Egypt" stated that more than 10 senior Egyptian leaders should be investigated for their role in the killings, among them Sisi, former Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim, Special Forces Commander Medhat Al-Minshawi, and the former Director of Intelligence Muhammad Farid Al-Tohami, former Army Commander Sidqi Sobhi, and former Chief of Staff Mahmoud Hegazy.

Immunity and exclusion

The paradox is that despite the protection and immunity that the military coup bestowed on the participants and perpetrators, none of them received permanent rewards and positions. Rather, those of them who obtained a promotion or a natural transition in their career path were later excluded and forgotten, with the exception of only two people, the first of which is Sisi of course and the second. The current commander of his army is Lieutenant General Mohamed Zaki.

Mohamed Zaki was commander of the Republican Guard when the late President Mohamed Morsi was arrested, and he carried out a small massacre at the headquarters of the Republican Guard, weeks before the massacre of a fourth, called the massacre of the two prostrates.

Zaki was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant General, then he was assigned the position of Minister of Defense to succeed Lieutenant General Sidqi Sobhi, Chief of Staff at the time of the massacre, and then he became Minister of Defense to succeed Sisi from 2014 until 2018 when he was suddenly dismissed, and it is the same fate for Mahmoud Hegazy, Chief of Staff and son-in-law. Sisi, who was director of Military Intelligence at the time of the massacre.

International immunity protected the Prime Minister at the time of the massacre, Hazem Al-Beblawy, from arrest in Washington, after the success of the American activist of Egyptian origin, Muhammad Sultan, in his prosecution for his responsibility for his torture during arrest after the Rab'a dispersal.

After leaving the premiership, Al-Beblawy worked as Executive Director of the International Monetary Fund. Al-Beblawi's dismissal from the premiership set the stage for a wave of attack by the local media, blaming him for the reasons for the deterioration of services provided to citizens, as well as fiercely attacking all ministers affiliated with the "democratic wing" in power at the time.

Dismissal to charge

As for the head of the intelligence service, Mohamed Farid Al-Tohamy, Al-Sisi dismissed him from his post a year and a half after his appointment as head of the agency immediately after the coup, and the sudden dismissal raised major question marks at the time.

Interior Minister Muhammad Ibrahim met the same fate as he was dismissed less than two years after the massacre passed, and Major General Medhat Al-Minshawi, Commander of Special Operations, was transferred to retirement upon reaching the legal age in early 2017, after he held the position of Assistant Minister for the Central Security Sector, as well as Major General Ahmed Helmy, First Assistant Minister of Interior for the Sector Security at the time of dispersal, and Major General Ashraf Abdullah, Assistant Minister of Interior for Central Security.

In March 2015, Major General Khaled Tharwat, who was brought in during the Brotherhood’s era as head of the National Security Agency, was abruptly ousted, and his dismissal was followed by a press campaign to question his loyalty.

Stalking efforts

In this context, European-based human rights activist Yasser Selim says that there is international collusion with the military regime in Egypt, despite the evidence of accusations of the killing of hundreds in the Rab'a and al-Nahda dispersals and others.

Salim, the author of the documentary book "A Fourth Massacre between Narration and Documentation," refers to the role of the law issued by Sisi to grant diplomatic protection to his officers abroad.

In his speech to Al-Jazeera Net, he drew attention to the filing of a number of lawsuits abroad against Al-Sisi personally, but without a decisive reaction from any country regarding these lawsuits.

In turn, the human rights defender, Haitham Abu Khalil, confirms that many of the martyrs and the injured could have exploited their cases, criticizing the legal shortcomings of those responsible for this file in various currents.

Speaking to Al-Jazeera Net, Khalil expressed his belief that some of the anti-coup currents abroad have political calculations in not escalating and prosecuting the perpetrators, and he criticized not building on previous successful attempts to pursue the perpetrators internationally, calling for a change in those responsible for this file.

On the other hand, the Secretary of the Foreign Relations Committee of the Freedom and Justice Party, Mohamed Sudan, says that efforts have been made and succeeded in prosecuting the perpetrators internationally, despite Egypt's lack of participation in the International Court in The Hague, including the prosecution of former Chief of Staff Mahmoud Hegazy.

He said that the Hague court accepted an invitation against the Egyptian government and then rejected it for vague reasons, but on a parallel level, efforts succeeded in obtaining a ruling from the British High Court to revoke the immunity of all members of the Egyptian government at the time of the massacre, with the exception of Sisi, who became an elected president with international immunity.

He said that the British High Court had issued decisions against 13 names, and Sudan mentioned in televised statements that lawsuits were filed against the British government for not granting immunity to Hijazi and others as it did, stressing that there are many cases filed in France, the Netherlands and Italy.