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Egypt's state security prosecutors filed attempted murder charges against a Coptic village priest, accusing him of provoking the violence which killed 21 Christians in El-Kosheh village over New Year's weekend.

Father Gabriel Abdul Masih, 35, was booked in a Cairo court February 7 on charges of attempted murder, conspiracy to commit murder, leading a mob attack, looting and damaging property, and possession of unlicensed weapons and ammunition. After ten hours of interrogations culminating in formal criminal charges, the priest was released on bail and allowed to return to his parish at the Angel Michael Church in El-Kosheh.

Church sources in Egypt confirmed that Prosecutor General Hisham Saraya of state security had requested through the cleric's local bishop, Bishop Wissa of Balyana, that the priest present himself to security authorities for questioning. Accordingly, Gabriel went to security headquarters in Cairo on Sunday evening, February 6. Saraya had announced to the Egyptian press on January 15 that a warrant had been issued for the priest's arrest. According to an article the next day in the London-based Al Hayat newspaper, Saraya's order was based on testimony taken from Muslims of Awlad Toq, a village adjacent to El-Kosheh.

But for the next three weeks, Gabriel was never notified by the authorities, nor was any attempt made to arrest him at his home in El-Kosheh.

Meanwhile, the Cairo media jumped on the allegations, declaring that the priest had been accused by Muslim witnesses of firing from the church tower, as well as leading a mob of Coptic youths, machine gun in hand. The multiple articles said Muslim villagers claimed that the rioting Christians were chanting, "Long live the cross. There will be no Islam after today."

In an interview published January 19 by Al-Ahali newspaper, Gabriel declared that he had only heard rumors about a warrant for his arrest from the newspapers. "It never happened that I fired a gun," he told Al-Ahli. "It is a disgrace to say that this was done from the high tower of the church, which is supposed to be a place of worship and prayer to God. … I am a religious man, not a terrorist."

As proof, the priest noted he was not even in El-Kosheh that Sunday morning, when witnesses accused him of leading rioters. In fact, he was meeting with the two heads of security for Sohag governate, requesting their intervention in the mob violence, looting and destruction occurring in the village.

"This is an attempt to give a bad name to the clergy of the Coptic church in Egypt," one church source said. "The government is trying to label us as militants and fanatics, just like the Muslim extremists."

Cairo prosecutors kept Gabriel under interrogation for 10 hours, from 9 p.m. Sunday night until 7 a.m. the following morning. His lawyers, Mamduh Ramzy and Samy Abdel-Sadook, were present throughout the questioning. He was released after posting bail, set at 1,000 LE ($290).

Significantly, Gabriel's arrest, charges and even his unusually high bail sum were all announced in a small article hidden in the back pages of Monday morning's semi-official Al-Ahram newspaper. "Obviously, the paper went to press the previous night, before Gabriel was released," one Coptic source remarked, "so everything was prearranged before he had even been questioned by the prosecutors—it was a theatrical performance!"Married with three children, Gabriel is one of the 13 Coptic Orthodox priests ministering in El-Kosheh's five churches. His paternal aunt, Baqona Gabriel Abdul Masih, was one of the victims murdered in the riots, acknowledged as the worst sectarian violence in Egypt in two decades.

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February (Web-only) 2000, Vol. 44