The district prosecutor of Alexandria’s Sidi Gaber district has accused the family of Khaled Saeed, the 29-year-old man allegedly killed by police early this month, of paying off eyewitnesses to give false testimony that Saeed had been beaten to death by police officers.
Investigations revealed that police were officially informed of the incident on 7 June, although eyewitnesses said it had taken place on 6 June.
In a related development, the EU diplomatic mission in Cairo on Monday expressed concern about the circumstances of Saeed’s death as a possible result of police brutality, requesting a credible and transparent investigation.
The Cairo-based Egyptian Organization for Human Rights (EOHR), for its part, has launched a media campaign against “torture and impunity,” intended to last 18 months. The campaign will work towards the amendment of articles in the Egyptian Penal Code pertaining to torture.
The EOHR sent President Hosni Mubarak a copy of a proposed draft law on torture that it had submitted to parliament in 2003, requesting severer punishments for convicted perpetrators of torture.
Translated from the Arabic Edition.
