torture and that there was Mukhabarat (Egyptian intelligence services) complicity with CIA extraordinary rendition practices during the Mubarak presidency. Tora Prison may have operated in this capacity since 1995/96 (being the most accessible of the few liman, i.e. maximum security prisons), making it one of the first of the black sites of George W. Bush's War on Terror. In December 2020, a detailed report by the Human Rights Watch highlighted the extensive changes introduced by the Egyptian authorities inside the Scorpion Prison of the Tora Prison complex. As part of collectively punishing nearly 800 to 900 prisoners, each cell of the Scorpion Prison’s four H-shaped building were modified to block all sources of ventilation, light and electricity from the cells. The report based on a three-page letter and a 13-minute video smuggled out of the prison, and three sources, including a lawyer, explained how the restrictions were further severed to torture the political prisoners inside these cells. Ramy Shaath, an outspoken Egyptian-Palestinian human rights defender was released from a two-and-a-half years’ long torturous detention in January 2022. Shaath became an easy target for the Egyptian authorities to arrest following his participation in the infamous 2011 pro-democracy protests in Egypt and his contribution to the foundation of the Egyptian branch of the boycott movement against Israel led by Palestinians. A vocal opponent of the Arab dictatorial system and the Israeli occupation over Palestinians, Shaath was subjected to torture, ill-treatment during his detention, detained in overcrowded prison cells, and forced to renounce his Egyptian citizenship to guarantee his release from the prison, despite wrongful detention. Notable inmates Maajid Nawaz, an Islamist-radical turned counter-extremist from the UK. He was visited in Tora by his lawyer, the future London Mayor, Sadiq Khan. † Shukri Mustafa (1965−1967), executed by hanging. Wolfgang Lotz (The Champagne Spy) (1965-1968) Abd al-Hamid Kishk (1981-1982) Mustafa Amin Abbud al-Zumar (1981-2011) Kamal Khalil Muhammad Abdelrahim al-Sharqawi (3 years in the late 1980s) Azzam Azzam (1997-2004) Ahmad Ibrahim al-Sayyid al-Naggar (1999/2000 previous to his execution elsewhere) Muhammad al-Zawahiri (1999−?2011, tortured and beaten) Ashraf Shahin (early 2000s, reportedly tortured) Ihab Saqr (2002−2006 Istiqbal Tura, 2006−2008 Liman Tura, 2008-? Istiqbal Tura) Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr (2003−?2007, reportedly tortured by electric shocks, beating and rape; see Abu Omar case) Ayman Nour (2005-2009) Hisham Talaat Moustafa (2008–present) Blogger Alaa Abd El-Fattah and dozens of other civil-rights activists (2006, presumably Istiqbal Tura) also in 2019 together with