CAIRO — An Egyptian court sentenced two police officers to seven years in prison on Wednesday for the beating death of a 28-year-old man whose killing helped set off the Egyptian revolution.
The sentence, handed down in an Alexandria court, angered both sides. The family of the victim, Khaled Said, and its supporters called it far too lenient. And news reports said that relatives of the two officers, Mahmoud Salah and Awad Ismaeil, caused havoc in the courtroom and tried to attack the prosecutors. The two men had been convicted of manslaughter.
The judge said that Mr. Said’s treatment had been “cruel,” but opponents of the sentence said it was too mild to deter similar episodes or to lead to much-needed changes in the Interior Ministry.
“Police officers are still assured that if they practice torture, the lower-ranking policemen will be presented as scapegoats, and they will escape unharmed,” said Gamal Eid, a human rights lawyer. He noted, however, that any prison sentence for police brutality in Egypt was rare.
About 40 protesters marched through downtown Cairo in the early evening, shouting chants against the ruling military council, which is increasingly seen as thwarting democratic changes and trying to preserve vestiges of the old government. At least one demonstrator noted that the sentence in the Said case was the same as some of the punishments handed down by military courts against peaceful protesters.
“We’ve been feeling for a long time that our revolution is being hijacked, and now that the verdict in Khaled Said’s case confirmed our fears, this will not pass easily,” said Amal el-Mohandes, one of the protesters.
Mr. Said’s relatives could not be reached for comment, but news reports here quoted them as being “shocked” by the verdict.
Mr. Said died after he was hauled out of an Internet cafe in Alexandria in June 2010, with witnesses saying the police beat him after dragging him onto a busy street.
Yet the initial autopsy and official explanation concluded that Mr. Said had died of suffocation as he tried to swallow a stash of hashish that he had been carrying. But gruesome pictures of his battered face raised doubts about that explanation and suggested that he had been severely beaten.
Prosecutors did not pursue the case aggressively at first, leading to the creation of a Facebook page titled “We Are All Khalid Said.” It displayed images of Mr. Said’s face and encouraged people to demonstrate against the authorities.
The page, which now has more than 1.5 million followers, urged supporters to attend the antigovernment rallies on Jan. 25 that started the revolution. The crowds swelled in numerous cities and succeeded in driving President Hosni Mubarak from office 18 days later.
During the revolution, Mr. Said’s name was woven into the antigovernment chants. A second autopsy report issued by an independent committee after the revolution said that Mr. Said had died from a severe beating and that the hashish had been forced down his throat after he died.
On the anniversary of his death, silent vigils were organized across Egypt demanding justice for Mr. Said, and images of his face were sprayed on walls.
His supporters said they would continue to pursue the case. “We have the right to be angry,” Wael Ghonim, the Google executive who helped create the Facebook page anonymously and later emerged as one of the leading young voices of the uprising, said Wednesday in a Twitter message. “But we are in a battle, and the rights of Khalid and all Egyptians like him will be returned.”
Source: nytimes.com