PRESS RELEASE
The release of the detainee Mahmoud Suleiman Salama El-Sawarka
Ref.: 12/99
Date: 10th February, 1999
On Monday, February 1, 1999, the Israeli Release Committee decided to release detainee Mahmoud Suleiman Salama El-Sawarka (56 years old) from Al-Ariesh, Egypt due to his deteriorating health. Six unsuccessful surgeries were carried out on El-Sawarka’s stomach during his arrest.
The Israeli authorities arrested El-Sawarka on July 6, 1977 in El-Arish, Egypt, at the time when El-Arish was under Israeli occupation. He was sentenced at that time to life imprisonment. He was accused of killing Israeli soldiers during the period of Israeli occupation of the north Sinai. He spent 20 years held in isolation without the knowledge of his family as to his whereabouts. In 1997 information was released to his family that he was being detained in Ashkelon Prison in Israel. Although Egypt signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1978, he was held until today (along with nine other Egyptian prisoners) in the Israeli prisons.
The decision to release El-Sawarka and to transfer him to Egypt was conditioned on the approval of the President of the State of Israel, who approved his release today, February 10, 1999. PCHR was informed that El-Sawarka would be released today at 2:00 p.m. He will be passed over to the Egyptian authorities through the Rafah border entrance.
The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) expresses its deep concern about his health and the health of scores of other Arab and Palestinian detainees. PCHR also warns of the continued deterioration in the health and living circumstances of these detainees in Israeli jails.
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