Egypt prosecution orders policemen detention over death in custody

Egypt prosecutors have ordered the detention of four policemen over the fatal torture of a cart vendor in custody last month.
2 min read
19 December, 2016
Police brutality helped fuel a 2011 uprising that unseated strongman Hosni Mubarak [AFP]

Egypt's prosecution has ordered the detention of four policemen pending investigations into the torture and death of a cart vendor in police custody last month.

Police officer Karim Magdy and three low-rank policemen from the Amireya Police Station in Cairo were accused of torturing 53-year-old Magdy Makin to death, forging official documents and deliberately harming their place of work.

Makin was arrested at midnight in mid-November after an altercation with policemen.

His lifeless body was brought hours later to a nearby hospital with signs of severe torture, which was confirmed by his family and later shown in forensic reports.

Videos of the Coptic Christian vendor's bloodied body later surfaced on social media, showing a bleeding backside and bruises on his face.

"The body showed clear signs of torture," his son Malak Magdy Makin told AFP.

The extent of involvement of each policeman is yet to be determined, Makin's lawyer Ali al-Halawany told Egyptian website Mada Masr.

The prosecution released six other policemen in the same case on bail.

The defendants denied the charges during interrogations, claiming they arrested Makin and two others after a police chase, and subsequently found 2,000 Tramadol pills in their possession.

The interior ministry's official account confirmed their claims.

According to Mada Masr, Makin's son had said that his father was arrested with two of his friends after a verbal altercation with the police officer Magdy.

The other men with Makin told his family they were held separately from him in the police station, but could hear his screams, which eventually stopped. This is when they Magdy urged them to confess to possession of the pills to secure their release, which they refused.

Under President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Egypt has witnessed a significant rise in cases of police torture, deaths in detention, and forced disappearances.

Activists accuse Sisi's government of allowing police too much free rein, which authorities have justified as needed to clamp down on political opponents, mostly the Muslim Brotherhood.

Last month, a court sentenced a low-ranking police officer to life in prison for killing a tea vendor and injuring two others in Cairo earlier this year.

Zeinhom Abdel Razek had gone on a shooting rampage in April in the upscale suburban neighbourhood of Rehab after refusing to pay for a cup of tea, according to witnesses and the interior ministry.

Police abuses had helped fuel a 2011 uprising that unseated strongman Hosni Mubarak.