Egypt's release of an Israeli spy in exchange for six Egyptian students charged with infiltrating into Israel has left the public unsatisfied. Gihan Shahine speaks to the students and gauges reactions to their release "Today," said Mustafa Abu Deif following his release, "I was reborn." Abu Deif was among the six Egyptian students arrested in Israel on 25 August on charges of allegedly "planning a terrorist attack" in Israel in support of the Palestinian Intifada. "I never thought I would be back home again," he told Al-Ahram Weekly. "I thought it was my end." The students were released on Sunday, in what much of the general public perceived as an "unfair exchange deal" for Israeli Arab textile worker Azzam Azzam, who was convicted by Egypt of spying for Israel in 1996 and sentenced to 15 years in jail. Intelligence officials interrogated the six students before they were reunited with their families on Monday night, in a dramatic scene tinged with a mix of cheers and tears. Neighbours, family members and the media swarmed the alleyways where the six students live, in the suburbs of Helwan, Maadi and Ismailia. Strings of coloured lights twinkled as people cheerfully danced to music played by DJs to celebrate the students' return. "We thank President [Hosni] Mubarak for bringing our son back after 100 days of extreme suffering and pain," said Abu Deif, the father of 23-year-old computer science graduate Mustafa. "We almost lost hope our son would ever be back again." Mustafa and his friends recounted the story of the long, dreadful months they spent in Israeli captivity. Their story began on 19 August when Mustafa left Cairo with five of his friends. They headed for Al-Arish, where the group had been spending their summer vacations for the past three years. "Bedouins there told us the government had made cheap lands available for young people to buy and reclaim," Mustafa told the Weekly. "They told us the way. And we decided to go on our own. But we got lost." It was on the eve of 25 August when Mustafa and his friends got lost while traversing from one village to another in search of a piece of land. "That night was particularly dark and misty, and we could hardly see a few centimetres away," Mustafa said. "We suddenly found ourselves standing in front of a wire fence which was only half-a-metre high." The six students said it did not occur to them that they were at the Egyptian-Israeli border. "The fence was so low that we thought it belonged to the ranch where we were standing," Mustafa said. "The most we might have imagined was that the fence belonged to an Egyptian military camp, because we would never have thought that a village would be that close to the border. Anyway, we crossed it very easily and just kept on walking until 5am." "Suddenly", Mustafa went on, "we found four cars chasing us and opening fire on us." "We ran fast," Mustafa said. "But then five of us stopped and only one of us kept on running. We surrendered and told them not to fire at our unarmed friend. They listened, and we were all taken into custody." According to the Israeli scenario, the students were arrested while they were attempting to cross the Egyptian border near Nitzana. Israeli press reports said the students managed to get three kilometres into the country before being spotted and captured by border policemen. Israeli press reports claimed it took the Israeli border police six hours to chase the Egyptian infiltrators, who were originally thought to be members of the Egyptian intelligence services who had been collecting information about IDF security procedures along the Egyptian- Israeli border. The suspects were reportedly carrying 14 knives, black camouflage attire, backpacks, binoculars, communications equipment, maps of Israel and various other items "to help carry out their scheme", the Israeli press said. According to the Israeli charge sheet, the six Egyptian students were indicted at Beersheba District court on charges of allegedly infiltrating into Israel, conspiring to seize a tank, and rob a bank in Mitzpe Ramon. The suspects allegedly planned to use the money from the bank to fund additional attacks on Israel in support of the Palestinian Intifada once they returned to Egypt. The charge sheet also included allegations that the students were planning to kidnap Israeli soldiers in order to negotiate the release of Palestinian security prisoners. Israel also alleged that the suspects had been planning the attack for three years as part of an independent local organisation, and had not associated themselves with any of the leading "terrorist" groups, in the words of the Israeli press. Israeli Border Police Commander Roni Ohana told the Israeli press that the students actually confessed that, "it was their intention to harm us or any Israeli security force that they came across, and after that civilians." Egypt's Foreign Ministry had also submitted a report based on personal interviews with the students, who, the report said, confessed that they infiltrated Israel "to declare their support for the Palestinian Intifada". Mustafa, however, told the Weekly that the Egyptian Foreign Ministry probably built its initial report on Israel's fabricated interrogation sheets. Whenever he is reminded of the Israeli scenario, which he shrugs off as "totally unfounded", Mustafa lets out a cynical laugh. "First," started Mustafa, "we were captured in less than 15 minutes, and definitely not in six hours. Second, we had nothing in our possession except a few table knives and spoons, food supplies, snorkeling equipment, and printed maps of Sinai from the Internet." When asked if they had confessed under physical and psychological pressure, Mustafa said, "we actually did not confess anything, we told them the true story. But then, after the official interrogations were over, some interrogators would come to informally joke and chat with us. They would, for example, ask us questions like 'What would you do if you had a knife in your hand and an Israeli soldier was standing in front of you?' I laughed and asked back, 'What would you do if you were in my place?' ... 'Kill him,' the interrogator said. I would nod in approval, and he would write it down as a confession. They kept on dragging us that way, putting our answers in another context, and made us sign a sheet written all in Hebrew. It was only when we knew about the charge sheet, that we realised how we had been dragged." Besides, Mustafa added, "during interrogations, we were extremely exhausted and intimidated." Mustafa said the students were also threatened during the interrogations that they would be killed if they did not answer. "The interrogators would point a gun at our heads, and hurl insults humiliating us and all Arab people and leaders. Then we were moved to detention camp number 301, where we were confined in private, small, dark and noise-proof cells, which only had a toilet and a bath. You can literally say I was sitting in a bathroom. A yellow spotlight kept me blurred and awake. I hardly slept for over a couple of hours at a time during the whole time I spent there." Mustafa said that the 14 days he spent in that cell "were the most horrible in my life. Sometimes I wanted to talk so badly that I wished they would summon me for more interrogations. And that's why I agreed to chat with the soldiers who, of course, twisted our words, took them out of context and put them as confessions in the sheets." Mustafa said that three officers from the Israeli Mossad intelligence service took charge of the interrogations. "First, they mistook us for members of the Egyptian intelligence agency, then for Egyptian officers," Mustafa said. "Then, later, the Israeli press took photos of some cans of luncheon [canned beef] and claimed we had explosive material in our possession. It was all a farce." Mustafa and his colleagues were then moved to the Beersheba District Court, where a gag on publishing news on their detention was lifted for the first time. "Then we spent the rest of our detention in Asqalan prison, where we were all reunited for the first time in two weeks," Mustafa went on. "That prison was better, and was equipped with TV sets that kept us updated with the world's news." Mustafa said that, following the Taba bombings, "the court hearing was postponed because the prosecutor wanted to add another charge: that we had links to the perpetrators of the bombings. "We felt hopeless anyway: we thought we would either spend the rest of our lives in prison, or would ultimately be shot dead," Mustafa said. "The only thing that gave us comfort was that the Foreign Ministry was following up the case with a team of lawyers from the Palestinian human rights organisations and the Egyptian Bar Association. "But it was only when President Mubarak personally interfered that we were actually released," Mustafa said gratefully. Both the Israeli scenario and the students' tales sound bizarre, however, leaving one major question unanswered: how did the six students manage to get three kilometres into Israel, through a heavily secured zone? The fact that Israel recently killed three Egyptian border policemen, saying they had mistaken them for Palestinian resistance fighters, undermines the credibility of both scenarios. For one thing, the Israeli scenario sounds more like a fantasy: how could six unarmed young men seize a tank and rob a bank with nothing more than knives in their possession; and why, according to the Israeli account, did it take the Israeli border police six hours to seize them? The ambiguity of the case has, once again, revived previous conspiracy theories. Mohamed Zarie, director of the Egyptian Human Rights Association for the Assistance of Prisoners (HRAAP), suspects that the students "were abducted, or rather baited, by the Israeli forces to attain specific political targets." Although the students insist that they were walking alone, the identity of the Bedouins who told them the way to get "a cheap piece of arable land", and whether or not there was really any land for sale in the first place, remains questionable. Zarie believes, as do many people, that it is now evident that "Israel had, at least, fabricated those bizarre charges to bargain for the release of Azzam Azzam." But even if the students actually did infiltrate to support their "Palestinian brothers", Zarie said, doing so would "only be a normal reaction to the atrocities committed by Israel against the Palestinian people daily, and does not mean the students had planned to seize a tank or rob a bank". The students' parents, however, say they know their sons too well to believe any of the Israeli claims. "It was ridiculous to think that with the help of a knife someone could seize a tank, rob a bank, and take Israeli soldiers as hostages," argued Yousseri Hussein, the father of 24-year-old Mohamed, a second year student at Helwan's Faculty of Engineering. "It was all a fantasia." Mahmoud Youssef, the father of 21-year- old Mustafa, an engineering-student at Cairo University, nodded in approval. "It is now clear to everybody that Israel was scheming to get Azzam back," Youssef said. All the parents told the Weekly that their children do not "even know how to ride a bicycle", or "kill a chicken". They have not received any military training, and "they have never even taken part in a demonstration," Youssef scoffed. The students, aged between 21 and 25, all hail from the lower middle class. Mahmoud Yousseri Hussein is an engineering student at Helwan University; Mahmoud Maher Said is a student in an industrial school; Mustafa Mahmoud Youssef is an engineering student at Cairo University; Emad El-Sayed Tohami holds an industrial diploma, Mohamed Gamal Ezzat is a student at the Matariya Technical Institute, and Mustafa Abu Deif Ali holds a degree in computer science. The students, who for the most part got good grades at school, usually worked as electricians and painters during their summer vacations to help with their educational expenses. None of them has been engaged in political activity or been affiliated with a religious group. Interestingly, Mahmoud Gamal got engaged only two weeks before travelling to Al-Arish. All the parents thanked President Mubarak for interfering to bring their children back. Nonetheless, they said, their happiness was heavily dampened when they found out that Azzam had been released in exchange. They all told the Weekly that they were provoked when Azzam showed up on satellite channels following his release, embracing and thanking Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in a Tel Aviv hotel, an Israeli flag draped across his shoulders. Hours later, his hometown in northern Israel, Merar, greeted him with fireworks. Thousands of locals spent the day celebrating, some dancing with Israeli flags. "It's really provocative how a spy is received as a hero," Youssef scoffed. "It's really an unfair swap. Our children did not do any harm to Israel. But Azzam was actually convicted for spying for Israel." Youssef's sentiments actually reflected the general public's mood as well. Official statements insisting that Egypt had not struck a "swap deal" with Israel, and that Azzam would have been released anyway for having served half his prison term with good conduct, seemed to hardly convince anybody. Everybody seemed convinced that the dual release was part of "an unfair deal" that was tilted in Israel's favour. "It was a deal, of course, and it would be stupid to try to hide it," Al-Ahram 's prominent columnist Salama Ahmed Salama told the Weekly. "The deal was ridiculously unfair, of course." Many analysts believe the dual release scored points for Sharon, increasing his recently-dwindling popularity and giving the Israeli stock exchange a boost (probably as a result of warming Egyptian-Israeli relations.) Israel's promise to "examine the possibility of shortening the jail terms of Palestinian prisoners" has hardly satisfied the Arab street. Many had hopes that the deal would include the release of hundreds of Palestinian detainees and important figures like Marwan El- Barghouti. "The students should have been released as an apologetic measure on the part of Israel for the killing of the three Egyptian border policemen at Rafah," Salama argued. "Besides, the students were only suspects -- they were not even introduced to court -- and it would be unfair to swap them for someone who was actually found guilty of spying for Israel." Amir Makhoul of Ittijah, a network of Arab community-based organisation in Israel (which volunteered to defend the students' case in Israeli courts), told the Weekly that, "a legal process should have taken its course since there was no proof the students were guilty of anything." Even the students' confessions, according to Makhoul, would not have counted in court since it is known they were probably taken under "physical or psychological pressures". Makhoul would not provide any details about how and why the students were detained, but he insisted that the Israeli charges "sounded very illogical, naïve, and lacking in any kind of evidence". "The fact that the students only had 14 table knives in their possession is absolutely no proof of any planned attack," he said. Makhoul thinks that, "Egypt's release of Azzam is largely seen as a gift for Israel, and was a shock to the Palestinians. Arab countries should certainly adopt a firmer attitude with spies. This is like giving the green light to people to spy for Israel as long as they ultimately get released." Zarie, however, thinks the deal is fair in the sense that "the six students are still young and are worth a million of Azzam's kind."
