A detained leading member of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood has said police have subjected him to "systematic abuse", including striping him and naked and photographing him.
Mohammad al-Beltagy told a Cairo court on Tuesday that senior police officials took photographs of him in the nude in an attempt to intimidate him into dropping a formal complaint against Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.
The former member of parliament has lodged a complaint over the sniper attack that killed his 17-year-old daughter, during the Rabaa massacre of August 2013, where more than 800 Brotherhood supporters were killed by Egyptian security forces.
"I have been repeatedly tortured by senior security officials during my detainment; the last incident happened on Saturday at the hands of aids of the Minister of Interior," Beltagy said.
"I was summoned from my cell and my hands and legs were tied up and I was forced to face the wall and squat like a prisoner of war. The aids then forced me to strip naked while they photographed me and insulted me."
He added that the "blatant violation of human rights" was an attempt to coerce him into abandoning his complaint against Sisi.
| Beltagy's teenage daughter was sniped to death at Rabaa [Getty] |
Beltagy has been sentenced to multiple life sentences in various cases, including torturing police during the Rabaa massacre.
In May, Beltagy's family accused prison officials of starting a fire in his solitary confinement cell at the maximum-security Aqrab prison, which has been described as Egypt's Guantanamo Bay.
Also during Tuesday's hearing, fellow detained Brotherhood leader Essam al-Arian gave an account of the abuses members of the blacklisted Islamist group have faced.
"Aqrab prison is a place detainees are sent to die. Those who weren't killed during the Rabaa massacre will die there," Arian said.
"There is a policy of systematic abuse against members of the Muslim Brotherhood."
Courts have sentenced hundreds of Islamists to death, including other Muslim Brotherhood leaders, since Sisi led a military coup against Egypt's first democratic elected president Mohammad Morsi in 2013.
Hundreds of Morsi supporters were killed during protests following the overthrow. Thousands of others were detained in a crackdown that was later expanded to include leftist and liberal dissidents.