SCENESETTER FOR ATTORNEY GENERAL GONZALES

C O N F I D E N T I A L CAIRO 003901

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

FOR THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FROM THE AMBASSADOR

E.O. 12958: DECL: 06/22/2016
TAGS: PREL PGOV CJAN KDEM EG
SUBJECT: SCENESETTER FOR ATTORNEY GENERAL GONZALES


Classified by Ambassador Francis Ricciardone for reasons 1.4
(b) and (d).

Attorney General Gonzales,


1. (C) The U.S. Mission in Egypt welcomes you and your
delegation to Cairo. Your visit will advance the President's
freedom agenda with Egypt by stepping up our engagement on
the rule of law. In this context, we ask your help on four
specific issues - the return of Egyptians detained by the
USG, establishing even stronger cooperation on law
enforcement and human rights practices, child abduction, and
pulling Hezbollah's terror-inciting "Al Manar" television
channel from Egypt's NileSat. You can also encourage the
process of legal and constitutional reform. Specifically, we
are eager to help President Mubarak fulfill his pledge to
amend the constitution and replace Egypt's state of emergency
with a proper anti-terror law. The GOE's drafters consider
the Patriot Act a model; your counsel on this subject will be
welcome. A message of thanks to the Egyptians for their
current strong cooperation with us on law enforcement and
counterterrorism issues will also be well received. We are
also working together to strengthen Egypt's judicial system;
our USAID mission has a major technical assistance program
designed to improve the transparency and efficiency of
Egypt's courts. This same productive cooperation is also
evident in the strong relations that the FBI and DEA offices
here at the Embassy have with their Egyptian counterparts.

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Detainees
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2. (C) Only three Egyptian detainees remain at GTMO.
Currently pending is the return to Egypt of GTMO detainee
Alaa Muhammed Saleem, who has been determined "no longer an
enemy combatant." Saleem's defense counsel is challenging
his detention in federal court, and we are eager to return
him to Egypt before the USG faces an adverse judgment. We
have previously received written assurances from the GOE that
Saleem would be treated humanely upon his return to Egypt.
Washington has now instructed the Embassy to seek
working-level written assurances that Saleem will not be
detained or prosecuted upon his return, a higher standard
than we have applied before. To date, counterparts at the
Ministry of Justice, the police, and intelligence service
tell us that Saleem faces no charges, but they are not
willing to commit this to paper.


3. (C) Earlier this year, we worked closely with Washington
agencies and the GOE to obtain written assurances pledging
humane treatment for Sameh Khouzam, a fugitive Egyptian
murder suspect, whose deportation from the U.S. is still
pending. After considerable effort, we gained written
assurances of humane treatment but the USG has been silent
for 3 months.


4. (C) Egyptian officials bridle over these requests for
written assurances. An explanation from you to the Egyptians
about why we need these assurances and the role they play in
our own legal system would be helpful for future requests.
That explanation, along with a pledge from you that we have
accepted the GOE's assurances in the Khouzam case, may
persuade your counterparts to authorize the additional
written assurances we are seeking in the Saleem case.


5. (C) We do not have a modern extradition treaty with Egypt.
The treaty still in force dates back to 1873, when Egypt was
still under Ottoman rule. The GOE occasionally expresses a
vague interest in negotiating a modern treaty with the U.S.
We have told Egypt that the starting point for such talks
would be Egyptian acceptance of the principle of extraditing
its nationals, which the GOE maintains is forbidden by its
constitution.

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Child Abduction
--------------


6. (C) Egypt has one of the largest abduction caseloads in
the world, with about twenty active cases. It would be most
effective if you would focus your discussions on that of
Sarah El Gohary, our oldest case and highest priority. Sarah
is an 11-year-old American child who was abducted from her
mother in Hawaii in 1997 and brought to Egypt by her father.
Although the mother gained custody of the child through the
Egyptian courts in early 2005, Egyptian authorities refused
to enter the court order and the case returned to the
judicial system. At the most recent hearing on June 21, the
case was postponed for the fifth time. We recommend that you
request the Minister of Justice and Public Prosecutor move up
the next hearing date, currently set for September, and
discourage future delays. With the Minister of Interior, you
could press for more energetic efforts to locate the child.
Security officials claim they are unable to locate her or her
father; the Embassy has not seen the girl since 2003.

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Police Training
--------------


7. (C) We enjoy a productive training and assistance
relationship with Egypt's armed forces and also with its
intelligence service. Our training with Egyptian police is
currently modest and ad hoc in comparison. We plan gradually
to step up a training relationship aimed ultimately at
institutional reform. Police better trained and equipped
should be less likely to resort to torture to obtain
confessions, and training in modern crowd control techniques
could help avoid tragedies like the December 2005 incident in
which 29 Sudanese asylum seekers squatting in a Cairo park
were killed during a police operation to relocate them.
Interior Minister Adly has accepted our urging that he set up
an office of public communications, a step we see as vital to
transforming how the police see their own role in serving the
public.


8. (C) We have not presented a formal proposal to the
Egyptian Ministry of Interior, but you could turn the soil by
urging future cooperation with Minister Adly.

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Al Manar
--------------


9. (C) We have been trying for over 18 months to persuade the
GOE to drop Al Manar, the television station of Lebanese
Hezbollah, from NileSat, a satellite consortium in which the
GOE is the majority shareholder. Al Manar specializes in
noxious anti-U.S. and anti-Israel propaganda and much of its
programming incites terrorism. While senior GOE officials
claim to share our revulsion with Al Manar's content, they
maintain they have no legal grounds to remove the station
from NileSat. However, a legal expert formerly with the
Ministry of Justice insists that the Egyptian penal code's
prohibition of incitement to terror, and the Arab League's
anti-terror convention, which Egypt ratified earlier this
year, could provide the legal basis to ban Al Manar. It
would be helpful if your raised this issue with your
interlocutors and pressed them to take advantage of every
possible legal avenue to pull the plug on Al Manar.

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Rule of Law Now a Front Burner Issue
--------------


10. (C) The GOE has developed a new judiciary law, which has
been sent to parliament. The government's draft contains
several steps forward, such as establishing an autonomous
budget for judiciary operations and formally separating the
public prosecution service from the authority of the Minister
of Justice. The Judges Club, the professional association of
the judiciary, complains it has not been consulted and has
some legitimate grievances -- all part of a healthy political
debate.

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The Egyptian Judiciary and Democracy
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11. (C) Egypt's 2005 parliamentary polls were marred by
serious irregularities. Egypt's judges are responsible for
monitoring elections, and some judges clearly were complicit
in these irregularities. The controversy dragged into 2006,
when several judges who blew the whistle on election
violations were referred for disciplinary action - ostensibly
for defaming fellow judges.

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Legal Reforms and the State of Emergency
--------------


12. (C) We would like to see political reform in Egypt move
faster. Insiders from the ruling National Democratic Party
tell us that the Egyptian leadership is putting together a
package of up to 20 constitutional amendments, to be
introduced in the new parliamentary session in November.

13. (C) One reform we strongly encourage is replacing the
state of emergency, in force since 1981, with an
anti-terrorism law that adequately protects civil liberties.
The GOE is looking at the Patriot Act as a possible model and
has at least two separate committees developing a bill it
hopes will be ready for parliament by mid-2007. Your
Egyptian hosts will be interested in your views on America's
experience with the Patriot Act as they work to draft their
own modern anti-terror law.

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The Minister of Justice and the Public Prosecutor
-------------- --------------


14. (C) Minister of Justice Mahmoud Aboul Leil is your senior
counterpart and host. A former governor, he is viewed warily
in his own ministry because of his lack of strong judicial
credentials. He is widely rumored to be in trouble over his
handling of the conflict with the Judges Club, and some
believe his days as Minister are numbered.


15. (C) The Ministry of Justice has been our partner in a
major USAID technical assistance project to automate Egypt's
commercial courts - increasing courts' abilities to manage
caseloads and countering corruption by increasing the
transparency of the adjudication process. After the success
of the first phase of the project, which automated two pilot
commercial courts, the model is now being replicated to
automate every commercial court in Egypt.


16. (C) You will also meet Maher Abdel Wahed, who is also a
functional counterpart as chief prosecutor. Maher is
pragmatic and friendly to the United States. He has
cooperated enthusiastically in a series of U.S. technical
assistance programs that have strengthened Egyptian
prosecutors' capacity and skills. USAID recently launched a
major project with the Ministry of Justice and the Public
Prosecutor that will develop an alternative dispute
resolution system, introduce plea bargaining, and establish a
public defender system.

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The Minister of Interior
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17. (C) Interior Minister Habib El-Adly supervises the
country's primary internal security organ, the State Security
Investigative Service (SSIS),as well as the Anti-Narcotics
General Authority (ANGA)- a DEA analogue. Adly is a member
of the GOE's old guard, and takes a tough line against the
Muslim Brotherhood and secular regime opponents alike. Adly
has confounded critics predicting his imminent removal after
his (mis)management of a series of terror attacks in Sinai.
The Ministry of Interior insists that it has destroyed the
"Group for Unification and Holy War" ("Tawheed wal Jihad")
which was responsible for the attacks, and is now pursuing
isolated remnants of the group hiding in the Sinai desert.


18. (C) Cairo's FBI office enjoys a productive relationship
with counterparts at SSIS, as does DEA with ANGA. The FBI
sends SSIS officers each year for training at the FBI academy
at Quantico, building Egyptian law enforcement capabilities
while strengthening our institutional ties. The State
Department's Anti-Terrorism Assistance Program is also
engaging with SSIS counter terrorist unit. We would like to
strengthen cooperation by moving forward with an FBI
initiative to upgrade Egypt's biometric data collection and
management. Our preliminary work with the GOE on this effort
is encouraging, but your expression of support for the
initiative would be very helpful.

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High Level Engagement is Key
--------------


19. (C) Mr. Attorney General, yours is the latest of a series
of high level visits that we believe is critical to
demonstrating to the Egyptians the value we place in our
relationship. Following Vice President Cheney in January,
Secretary Rice and FBI Director Moeller in February, and a

SIPDIS
delegation led by Special Coordinator for Counterterrorism
Amb. Hank Crumpton also in February, your visit will
underscore the particular importance we place on our
cooperation on rule of law, law enforcement, and security
issues. We look forward to your arrival.
RICCIARDONE