SudaneseOnline: سودانيزاونلاين

Laura Pitel
February 13 2012 12:01AM
The Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) has demanded an Sudanese inquiry after a British man was secretly detained and tortured in Khartoum.
Magdy el-Baghdady, 31, was arrested by Sudan’s notorious security services in February last year and accused of inciting revolution in the country and spying.
He was held in appalling conditions for three months, subjected to beatings and torture and denied access to his embassy. He was then subjected to a lengthy sham trial.
Mr el-Baghdady finally returned to the UK on December 31 after an ordeal lasting almost a year.
The FCO has said it is “deeply concerned” about the treatment of a British citizen and officials have begun efforts to hold to account those responsible for his torment.
Mr el-Baghdady, who grew up in West London, travelled to Khartoum in January last year to set up a mobile gourmet food company.
He had been in the country only two weeks when security services burst into his flat as he was cooking dinner. “The first thing they said to me was: you are the leader of a revolution,” Mr el-Baghdady toldThe Times. “For me it was amusing — I didn’t clock on to how serious it was.”
It quickly became clear that the situation was much more grave than it first seemed. He and his friend were held for 26 days without charge in political remand cell of Kober prison, a colonial-erajail in the north of the capital. They were put in a in a cramped, filthy cell and suffered daily beatings from at the hands ofprison guards.
On one occasion, the pair were subjected to a mock execution. “They took us and held us against this wall,” Mr el-Baghdady said. “They put blindfolds on and then they brought two weapons and put them on the back of our heads.
“There was a ‘ch-ch’ as they cocked the weapon . . . Even though there was a muzzle on my head I didn’t understand what was happening.”
After almost four weeks in the first prison, they were transferred to a series of other jails across the capital. In May, three months after their initial arrest, they were released.
But the relief was short-lived. Mr el-Baghdady and his friend were told that they were to be put on trial for breaking an electronic communications act after some basic computer parts were found in their possession.
A Kafkaesque trial ensued, with absent witnesses, missing interpreters and an exasperated judge. While his friend was acquitted, Mr el-Baghdady was found guilty in a verdict that he suspects was politically motivated. Given the choice between a £1,000 fine and a prison sentence, he opted for the latter on principle. “I told them that even if it was £1 I wouldn’t pay,” he said. “I’m not the kind of person who’s going to back down.”
He went to jail, but the mother of a friend paid the fine without his knowledge and he was released. Determined to clear his name, he lodged an appeal that was initially successful but was then overturned.
He left Sudan in mid-December, flying first to Egypt to visit his blind, elderly father who he had cared for before departing for Sudan last year. He returned to England on December 31. arriving just in time to see in the New Year with his fiancée.
The 31-year-old has been badly affected by his ordeal. His body bears the scars of cigarette burns, he has an injured foot after it was stamped on by a prison guard, and his 6ft 2in frame is gaunt after losing 45kg as a result of months of malnourishment and stress.
He insists that his treatment pales into comparison with the horrors he watched Sudanese people endure during is time inside the prisons, recalling cases of torture too harrowing to print.
He is currently working with Redress, a London-based human rights organisation, to launch legal action against the Sudanese authorities, and hopes to focus shine a lighton the abysmal human rights situation in Sudan, where experiences such as his are commonplace.
Mr el-Baghdady’s battle with the Sudan’s judicial system continues and he plans to take his case his case all the way to the country’s Supreme Court. “I’m not the kind of person who’s going to back down or let it go,” he said. “It was a difficult situation but worth it in the end. There’s a point to prove here. How could I just walk away?”