Mahmoud Tawfik

'Mahmoud Tawfik (Arabic: محمود توفيق) (born 1961) is an Egyptian politician and police officer who serves as the Egyptian Minister of Interior.

Background

Tawfik joined the Egyptian police and graduated from the Police Academy in 1982. Following his graduation, Tawfik worked for various Egyptian security agencies under the control of the Egyptian Ministry of Interior. He started working for the Cairo Security Directorate, before joining the State Security Investigations Service and later its successor agency, the National Security Agency in 2011. At the National Security Agency, he served as director of the agency’s external operations department before becoming deputy director of the agency in 2015.^[1] Tawfiq was involved in counter-terrorism activities, especially against islamist groups, including the Muslim Brotherhood. On 29 October 2017, Tawfik was promoted to director of the National Security Agency by then Minister of Interior Magdy Abdel Ghaffar after insurgents killed several police officers in an ambush in the egyptian Western Desert.^[2] On June 14, 2018, President Abdel-Fattah El Sisi reshuffled several key ministries and appointed Tawfiq as Minister of Interior.^[3]

During his time as director of the National Security Agency, Amnesty International reported that the agency was responsible for large scale human rights violations like torturing, abducting and killing members of the opposition without trial.^[4]

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