AN EGYPTIAN asylum seeker yesterday claimed he had been brutally assaulted by the Limassol police, who also subjected him to racial abuse following a mix up over an arrest.
Moenes Adel Fouad, an Egyptian Christian who has sought asylum in Cyprus for the past eight years, was called in for questioning at the Ayios Ioannis police station on September 3 after a wallet was stolen from a car parked near to his.
Fouad, who was accompanied by his wife, Geraldine Adan, and their child, waited for an hour at the station before the victim of the crime arrived, and said Fouad was not the culprit.
At this point Fouad’s and police accounts of the incident diverge.
Speaking through Adan, Fouad said that he complained to the police about their readiness to summon and detain him without evidence.
He then alleges the police officer justified the arrest on racial grounds, saying: “You are all like this, you Arab, mafia, mavrou (black).”
In a youtube.com video produced by immigrant support group KISA, Fouad explains what happens next.
“The police officer should have apologised to me for bringing me to the station and accusing me of doing something wrong, but he did the opposite. He tore my papers, spat in my face, beat me up, handcuffed me, broke my hand and badly injured me.”
During the video, Fouad shows the bruises left after the incident, and demonstrates how one officer stamped on his ribs.
“He put me down on the floor and started kicking and kicking me. If someone was beating an animal they might take more pity on him. They were beating me with no mercy, like they were beating a criminal or a terrorist”.
Adan said she witnessed the policeman assault her husband before she and her child were ushered out of the room: “I saw my husband down (on the ground) and I saw the policeman kicking, kicking, kicking… and shouting ‘you are Arabic, you are mafia’.”
Police at the station declined to comment on the incident; however, according to a police source from another station the police report tells a very different version of events.
According to the report, Fouad refused to leave the station after the initial questioning. Instead he became verbally abusive, pushed one officer and hit another on the head. They then proceeded to arrest him.
During the fracas, according to the police report, two officers were injured, one with a fractured hand. Fouad was remanded in custody for one day, appeared in court on September 5h and is due again on November 11.
Asked how the policeman managed to fracture his hand during the incident, the police source said he did not know. Fouad claims the policeman struck an air conditioning unit. The injured policeman was unavailable for comment.
For Fouad, the incident has shattered his view of Europe as a safe haven from the turmoil in Egypt.
“I am still in shock,” he said, adding: “I thought, I’m here in a European Country as a refugee, I’m in Cyprus under protection as a refugee, I should not be beaten! They say in Arab countries they beat and insult people. It’s not better here.”
The couple has filed a complaint with the United Nations and KISA, and they intend to submit a complaint to the independent police complaints commission next week.
