Hannan Adely , Staff Writer, @AdelyReporterPublished 8:32 a.m. ET April 8, 2017 | Updated 16 hours ago
Ahmed Hassan, a 17-year-old U.S. citizen and New Jersey native, spends his days in a dark, crowded Egyptian prison cell, waiting and hoping for help.
Hassan’s family and supporters say the teen, who loves basketball and who planned to attend college in the U.S., was jailed after he questioned police officers who were arresting his uncle on a zoning violation last December. A surveillance video released to The Record shows him being beaten by officers and dragged and tossed into a van.
“The family is desperate. He’s a 17-year-old kid sitting in jail with at least 20 adults. Egyptian prisons are not the best place for a kid to be,” said Praveen Madhiraju, a pro bono lawyer with the organization Pretrial Rights International who is representing Hassan.
The teen has been sentenced to a year in prison.
https://www.northjersey.com/story/news/2017/04/08/nj-teen-desperate-help-egyptian-prison/100081850/
