Mohamed El Ghanem

Dr. Mohamed El Ghanem is an Egyptian refugee detained without charge for seven years by the Geneva judiciary, between 2007 through 2013, allegedly in retaliation for refusing to spy on Geneva's Muslim community leaders.

Dr. El Ghanem was released shortly after the Swiss Supreme Court ruled his detention wrongful, requiring he be released in October 2013.

Dr. El Ghanem was released from prison and put into a mental hospital by the STate of Geneva (2022), based on allegations made without his presence. Suffering the effects of his wrongful confinement, he fired his own lawyers.

As of 2024, a former Swiss politician validated his disappearance while in the hands of the Swiss authorities.

Biography Dr. El Ghanem is a Professor of International law, having received his PhD from the University of Rome. Dr. El Ghanem authored a 1991 book on "Terrorism and the Law". As an Egyptian government official, he drafted much of the country's anti-terrorism legislation.

Prior to seeking asylum in Switzerland, El Ghanem was an Egyptian Government official, a Director in the Ministry of Interior, who also taught law at the police academy in Cairo. In the late 1990s, El Ghanem had differences with Egyptian government, because he refused to fabricate false charges against journalists and other dissidents. He subsequently became the target of persecution himself for contesting the persecution of others, at which point he sought asylum first in Italy, then in Switzerland. At the time, a large-scale operation of spying on the Geneva-based imam called "Operation Memphis" was in-play. To the chagrin of the Swiss security services, Dr. El Ghanem refused to collaborate as an informant. As a result of his refusal, he claimed to have received severe harassment and threats by the same Swiss secret service officials. that he sought only protection, and that Dr. El Ghanem was peacefully studying at the University of Geneva to obtain Swiss recognition of his law degree from the University of Rome when the Swiss harassment started. on the grounds that Dr. El Ghanem was a threat to the external and internal security of the country.

For two years the Swiss government refused to reply to Dr. El Ghanem's family's questions about his whereabouts.

In 2009, journalist Robert Fisk declared that Mohamed El Ghanem had been "disappeared" by the Swiss Government.

The FBI is "embedded" in the Swiss Federal Department of Justice and Police, under the auspices of a 2006 bilateral treaty for joint U.S.-Swiss investigations. Under a U.S.-Swiss treaty, Swiss-based FBI activities in joint investigations are financed by the United States, meaning they may have funded the investigation and imprisonment of El Ghanem.

FBI tactics of forced recruitment for spying on Muslim leaders are well known, having been reported on extensively by the ACLU and U.S. news outlets such as CNN. U.S. Muslims who have rejected FBI recruitment have been subjected to severe harassment, threats, arbitrary arrest. The U.S. organization Council on American–Islamic Relations (CAIR) has complained repeatedly about FBI threats, coercion and deportation of U.S.-based Muslims who have refused to spy for the FBI.

2010: Lawyers raise case before the UN Committee on Enforced and Voluntary Disappearances

In 2009, Dr. El Ghanem submitted a pro se application for habeas corpus. This was ignored by the Geneva Court.

Dr. El Ghanem had undertaken several hunger strikes during his imprisonment; he was already suffering from heart problems. and noting that El Ghanem's incarceration was damaging the image of Switzerland abroad

Swiss activists were also angrily protesting for his release, holding sit-ins in front of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva.

Also in 2012, the new Egyptian Government was asking the Swiss government to explain their treatment of a man who had sought refuge from the Mubarak regime. This was in response to a number of riots which were held in Cairo, protesting the wrongful incarceration of Dr. El Ghanem. In response to these official Egyptian queries, and the activity of local Swiss activists, the Swiss Parliament discussed the topic.

2013: Swiss Supreme Court orders the release of Dr. El Ghanem

By mid-2012, lawyers for Dr. El Ghanem raised a case before the Swiss Supreme Court requesting that a new analysis of the case be held.

In January 2013, the Federal Supreme Court ruled in favour of the release of Dr. El Ghanem.

In June 2013, the Geneva Judiciary appealed the ruling on Dr. El Ghanem's release. They were unsuccessful. In October 2013, El Ghanem was released from prison.

2013: Involuntary commitment to a psychiatric hospital From 2013 onwards, he was subsequently committed under an involuntary hospitalization regime at the Belle-Idée Psychiatric Hospital (https://www.letemps.ch/suisse/mohamed-elghanam-quitte-champdollon) without it being specified whether he was subjected to involuntary treatment.

2024: Apparently "disappeared"

According to Geneva politician Chloé Frammery, who campaigned for his release, he was interned from 2013 until at least 2023. In October 2024, she contacted the Belle-Idée Psychiatric Hospital, which confirmed that the colonel was not there, or no longer was.

Articles about the case THE INDEPENDENT: Robert Fisk’s World: The curious case of the missing Egyptian and the Swiss police, The Independent, 29 August 2009 THE INDEPENDENT: Robert Fisk’s World: Jailed in Geneva: The Colonel Who Stood up to Mubarek but Refused to Spy for the Swiss, Robert Fisk, The Independent, March 5, 2012 LEMAN BLUE (Swiss Television) Discussion of El Ghanem Case Interview with Brother of Dr. El Ghanem (Part in English, part in French)