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State Security Investigations Service
The State Security Investigations Service (Arabic: مباحث أمن الدولة, romanized: Mabahith Amn El Dawla) was the highest national internal security authority in Egypt. Estimated to employ 100,000 personnel, the SSI was the main security and intelligence apparatus of Egypt's Ministry of Interior. The SSIS was responsible for internal security matters such as counter-intelligence and counter-terrorism. In addition, it was focused on monitoring underground networks of radical Islamists and probably planted agents in those organizations and had the role of controlling opposition groups, both armed groups and those engaged in peaceful opposition to the government. It has been described as "detested" and "widely hated".
Following the 2011 Egyptian revolution, the head of the SSI was arrested under suspicion of ordering the killings of demonstrators. On March 15, 2011, the Ministry of the Interior announced the dissolution of the agency. The service was replaced by (or renamed) the Egyptian Homeland Security after the 2013 Egyptian coup d'état.
The State Security Investigations Service was originally formed during the colonial era in 1913 as the Intelligence wing of the National Police. The first person to control it was Selim Zaki, who was the head of the Cairo division of the police. In 1936 during King Farouk’s reign, it expanded its size and established 2 administrations, one in Cairo and the other in Alexandria and by that period, It was headed by the leader of the Royal Police whom had received orders from the Monarch directly.
The service was reformed and reorganized following the 1952 coup d'état to suit the security concerns of the new socialist regime. In August 1952, The State Security apparatus was made a separate branch of the Interior Ministry, separate from the regular Police command, and was focused intensively on political threats to the State's security, particularly those emanating from communist, socialist, and Islamist opposition sources. The State Security was made independent of the Police Command and given legal powers of arrest, detention, and prosecution. Separate State Security Courts were set up to prosecute detainees arrested by the SSIS, separately from the regular prosecution judiciary. The first Chief of the SSIS was the Police Brigadier Ayman Mahfoud, an ex-Army officer who had become a Police officer and a part of the Free Officers' Movement of Gamal Abdel Nasser.
After 1954–55, when relations between Egypt and the Soviet Union drastically improved, the SSIS was intensively trained by the Soviet State Security apparatus on political suppression, infiltration, public surveillance, public intimidation, and coercive interrogation. These newly learned techniques were often used against suspects of the Lavon Affair. State Security officers were sent to the Soviet Union to undergo training under the KGB. During the Nasser era, the State Security apparatus often harassed Egypt's Jewish community. Jewish properties were infiltrated by State Security agents during mid-night and thousands of Jews in Egypt were arrested and tortured by the agency. Jewish neighborhoods across Egypt were also under mass surveillance from the State Security. The State Security was at times successful in catching Egyptian and Israeli Jews whom were spies for Israel and the agency managed to interrogate them using methods of torture to gather important information that helped decrease cases of spying. After 1963, Egyptian State Security officers were sent to Algeria, Syria, Yemen and Iraq to train the newly formed state security agencies of the Baathist and nationalist regimes of those countries. In the 1960s, the SSIS forged new ties with the State Security apparatus of East Germany, which took SSIS competence against political subversion to an extremely competent level. Recruits were carefully screened and selected on the basis of political reliability, and practicing Muslims were virtually barred during the Nasser era. Officers were mostly recruited from the military and the regular Police, who had proven their political reliability. Candidates had to be recommended by loyal Police officers and serving State Security officers. During the Sadat and Mubarak eras, the agency continued its focus on radical Islamists but eased up on the suppression of the Liberal opposition. The SSIS excelled in planting moles and infiltrators within Islamist groups, a practice that would later be carried out with ruthless efficiency by the agency's trainees in Algeria and Syria. Torture was rampantly used during interrogation. Detainees were regularly beaten to death, and sexual penetration was used as a form of torture against Islamist detainees. The agency came to be regarded as professionally competent and capable by Western counter-terror agencies.[citation needed]
In a report in 2002, the United Nations Committee against Torture expressed "particular concern at the widespread evidence of torture and ill-treatment in administrative premises under the control of the State Security Investigation Department, the infliction of which is reported to be facilitated by the lack of any mandatory inspection by an independent body of such premises." Human Rights Watch reported that "Egyptian authorities have a longstanding and well-documented record of engaging in arbitrary arrests, incommunicado detention, and torture and other ill-treatment of detainees," and that the SSI has in particular committed acts of torture and denied detainees fundamental human rights. A US diplomatic cable reported that police brutality and torture are "routine and pervasive". The cable also reported that the security services functioned as "instruments of power that serve and protect the regime".
Both Egyptian and international human rights groups, as well as the United Nations Committee Against Torture, have documented widespread use of torture by the SSI, with Human Rights Watch singling out the SSI in what it called a "pervasive culture of impunity" with regard to torture. It's been alleged that during the War on Terror, the United States used to send terrorists to the State Security in Egypt for interrogation that included methods of torture. It's also been alleged that several Egyptian State Security agents have travelled to Cuba during the Mubarak era to torture detainees at the Guantanamo Bay and trained U.S. soldiers on torturing techniques against detainees.
Italian authorities investigating the illegal abduction of Egyptian-born cleric Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, from the streets of Milan on February 17, 2003 have said that his final disposition, after a flight from Aviano to Ramstein and then from Ramstein to Alexandria, was into the hands of the SSI. At least one of the CIA officials named in the indictment, Robert Seldon Lady, is said to have accompanied Omar to Egypt, and to have spent two weeks in Cairo assisting in Omar's interrogation.
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State Security Investigations Service
The State Security Investigations Service (Arabic: مباحث أمن الدولة, romanized: Mabahith Amn El Dawla) was the highest national internal security authority in Egypt. Estimated to employ 100,000 personnel, the SSI was the main security and intelligence apparatus of Egypt's Ministry of Interior. The SSIS was responsible for internal security matters such as counter-intelligence and counter-terrorism. In addition, it was focused on monitoring underground networks of radical Islamists and probably planted agents in those organizations and had the role of controlling opposition groups, both armed groups and those engaged in peaceful opposition to the government. It has been described as "detested" and "widely hated".
Following the 2011 Egyptian revolution, the head of the SSI was arrested under suspicion of ordering the killings of demonstrators. On March 15, 2011, the Ministry of the Interior announced the dissolution of the agency. The service was replaced by (or renamed) the Egyptian Homeland Security after the 2013 Egyptian coup d'état.
The State Security Investigations Service was originally formed during the colonial era in 1913 as the Intelligence wing of the National Police. The first person to control it was Selim Zaki, who was the head of the Cairo division of the police. In 1936 during King Farouk’s reign, it expanded its size and established 2 administrations, one in Cairo and the other in Alexandria and by that period, It was headed by the leader of the Royal Police whom had received orders from the Monarch directly.
The service was reformed and reorganized following the 1952 coup d'état to suit the security concerns of the new socialist regime. In August 1952, The State Security apparatus was made a separate branch of the Interior Ministry, separate from the regular Police command, and was focused intensively on political threats to the State's security, particularly those emanating from communist, socialist, and Islamist opposition sources. The State Security was made independent of the Police Command and given legal powers of arrest, detention, and prosecution. Separate State Security Courts were set up to prosecute detainees arrested by the SSIS, separately from the regular prosecution judiciary. The first Chief of the SSIS was the Police Brigadier Ayman Mahfoud, an ex-Army officer who had become a Police officer and a part of the Free Officers' Movement of Gamal Abdel Nasser.
After 1954–55, when relations between Egypt and the Soviet Union drastically improved, the SSIS was intensively trained by the Soviet State Security apparatus on political suppression, infiltration, public surveillance, public intimidation, and coercive interrogation. These newly learned techniques were often used against suspects of the Lavon Affair. State Security officers were sent to the Soviet Union to undergo training under the KGB. During the Nasser era, the State Security apparatus often harassed Egypt's Jewish community. Jewish properties were infiltrated by State Security agents during mid-night and thousands of Jews in Egypt were arrested and tortured by the agency. Jewish neighborhoods across Egypt were also under mass surveillance from the State Security. The State Security was at times successful in catching Egyptian and Israeli Jews whom were spies for Israel and the agency managed to interrogate them using methods of torture to gather important information that helped decrease cases of spying. After 1963, Egyptian State Security officers were sent to Algeria, Syria, Yemen and Iraq to train the newly formed state security agencies of the Baathist and nationalist regimes of those countries. In the 1960s, the SSIS forged new ties with the State Security apparatus of East Germany, which took SSIS competence against political subversion to an extremely competent level. Recruits were carefully screened and selected on the basis of political reliability, and practicing Muslims were virtually barred during the Nasser era. Officers were mostly recruited from the military and the regular Police, who had proven their political reliability. Candidates had to be recommended by loyal Police officers and serving State Security officers. During the Sadat and Mubarak eras, the agency continued its focus on radical Islamists but eased up on the suppression of the Liberal opposition. The SSIS excelled in planting moles and infiltrators within Islamist groups, a practice that would later be carried out with ruthless efficiency by the agency's trainees in Algeria and Syria. Torture was rampantly used during interrogation. Detainees were regularly beaten to death, and sexual penetration was used as a form of torture against Islamist detainees. The agency came to be regarded as professionally competent and capable by Western counter-terror agencies.[citation needed]
In a report in 2002, the United Nations Committee against Torture expressed "particular concern at the widespread evidence of torture and ill-treatment in administrative premises under the control of the State Security Investigation Department, the infliction of which is reported to be facilitated by the lack of any mandatory inspection by an independent body of such premises." Human Rights Watch reported that "Egyptian authorities have a longstanding and well-documented record of engaging in arbitrary arrests, incommunicado detention, and torture and other ill-treatment of detainees," and that the SSI has in particular committed acts of torture and denied detainees fundamental human rights. A US diplomatic cable reported that police brutality and torture are "routine and pervasive". The cable also reported that the security services functioned as "instruments of power that serve and protect the regime".
Both Egyptian and international human rights groups, as well as the United Nations Committee Against Torture, have documented widespread use of torture by the SSI, with Human Rights Watch singling out the SSI in what it called a "pervasive culture of impunity" with regard to torture. It's been alleged that during the War on Terror, the United States used to send terrorists to the State Security in Egypt for interrogation that included methods of torture. It's also been alleged that several Egyptian State Security agents have travelled to Cuba during the Mubarak era to torture detainees at the Guantanamo Bay and trained U.S. soldiers on torturing techniques against detainees.
Italian authorities investigating the illegal abduction of Egyptian-born cleric Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, from the streets of Milan on February 17, 2003 have said that his final disposition, after a flight from Aviano to Ramstein and then from Ramstein to Alexandria, was into the hands of the SSI. At least one of the CIA officials named in the indictment, Robert Seldon Lady, is said to have accompanied Omar to Egypt, and to have spent two weeks in Cairo assisting in Omar's interrogation.