The two secret policemen charged in the case of a 28-year-old man who eyewitnesses say was beaten to death in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria stood trial Tuesday amid local and international concern over continuing human rights abuses in Egypt.
Khaled Saeed was allegedly killed by Mahmoud Salah Mahmoud and Awad Ismail Sliman on 6 June after a confrontation in an internet cafe in Alexandria. According to witnesses, Saeed was dragged out of the cafe before his head was banged on a solid surface. Saeed’s family say he was killed after posting a video on the internet showing the involvement of policemen in drug deals.
The charges against the two policemen include illegal arrest and use of excessive force.
While lawyers from both sides were consumed in their own legal battle inside the Alexandria criminal courtroom, another confrontation unfolded outside. Nearly a hundred of Saeed’s supporters gathered on the street waving his picture and shouting anti-police slogans.
This time, they were not only defying hundreds of riot police that encircled them: They also had to deal with a crowd of a hundred pro-police supporters who rallied on the steps outside the court house and chanted slogans in defense of the interior ministry. Supporters of Saeed say the crowd was mostly composed of plain-clothes police.
Whereas Saeed’s supporters were shouting: “Get lost Minister of Torture,” in reference to Interior Minister Habib el-Adly, their opponents raised banners reading: “Policemen are the nation’s children. The judiciary is our refuge and the police are for our security”
“The strong police presence outside the court shows how terrified the regime is,” said Ali Qassem, Saeed’s uncle.”Why all these forces? They cost Egypt a lot, financially and morally. They destroy its image.”
The court decided to adjourn the trial until 25 September for further hearings. Saeed’s defense team had asked the court to summon more witnesses from among the police department where the two defendants served and the forensic doctors that dissected the victim’s body. In the meantime, the police lawyer demanded that the charges be reclassified as a misdemeanor rather than a felony.
The defendants’ lawyer Refaat Abdel Hamid was confident that his clients will be acquitted, as they were simply enforcing an earlier verdict sentencing Saeed to one month in prison.
“The law gives the police the right to use appropriate force in such cases,” Abdel Hamid told Al-Masry Al-Youm after the hearings. “Yet they did not use any force against him.” As soon as they grabbed him, he swallowed the joint he had with him.”
The photos of Saeed’s bashed head, broken jaw and deformed face that circulated on blogs and Facebook pages drew unprecedented media attention and provoked much controversy.
Earlier, the interior ministry responded by issuing a statement claiming that Saeed was an ex-convict and died of asphyxia after swallowing a roll of drugs. Yet, these allegations did not dissuade hundreds of demonstrators from taking to the streets on a weekly basis to call for the prosecution of the perpetrators and the lifting of the state of emergency.
“This is an extraordinary case,” 19-year-old Abdullah Farrag told Al-Masry Al-Youm on the sidelines of the protest. “This guy was tortured and killed on the street. I do not know him but I cannot shut up forever.”
According to Bahey Eddin Hassan, director of the Cairo Institute for Human Rights, Saeed’s case has changed the Egyptian reaction to human rights violations.
“The Egyptian attitude toward torture has evolved for the first time from taking the form of isolated protests, to daily and consistent demonstrations on the street,” said Hassan.
“This is unprecedented in Egypt and shows how much people feel threatened by torture.”
Saeed’s death also drew criticism from Egypt’s two main western allies. The European Union expressed concern over the death, criticism that was not welcomed by the Egyptian side.
The Egyptian foreign minister Ahmed Abul Gheit dismissed the EU position as an “unacceptable interference” in Egypt’s internal affairs. Meanwhile, a spokesman of the US State Department urged the Egyptian government to investigate the case “transparently.”
International human rights watchdog Amnesty International on Monday expressed concern that witnesses in the trial could be harassed and urged the government to ensure their safety. The London-based organization said one of Saeed’s friends, Khaled Mohamed, was attacked a week ago by nine people brandishing knives.
Three years ago, a video showing a 21-year-old man being sodomized with a stick in a police station caused similar outrage. Emad El-Kabir’s case became a cause celebre that forced the regime to sentence the two policemen involved to three years in prison.
This time, the verdict will be “slightly harsher” because the victim was killed but it will fall short from achieving justice, said Hassan.
“Torture is a systematic policy in Egypt,” he said. “A fair trial should include more people, namely the ones who order policemen to act this way.”
On 14 July, the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights (EOHR) reported that 12 people were tortured to death by police in 2009 alone. According to the EOHR’s annual report, 125 cases of death resulting from torture were recorded between 2000-2009.
The trial of Saeed’s alleged murderers takes place against a turbulent political background in Egypt. Reports about President Honsi Mubarak’s ill-health have raised fears at home and abroad over the future of the country.
Post-Mubarak Egypt has recently made headlines in several western newspapers and magazines. The ailing regime is facing criticism from different social and political groups over its poor economic performance and reluctance to endorse genuine political reforms that would end Egypt’s 29-year-old state of emergency and allow multiple candidates to run in next year’s presidential elections.
“I have faith that the verdict will be in our favor,” said Saeed’s uncle. “The Egyptian judiciary is fair. However, to satisfy us 100 percent, the verdict should order the execution of the murderers as well as the ending of the emergency law.”
