Court cases put Egypt in rights glare
Journalist caged for more than two years
CAIRO: Recent court cases in Egypt have put the spotlight on human rights abuses as two policemen were sentenced in the deadly torture of a detainee while the trial of a photojournalist held for more than two years was adjourned.
The Cairo Criminal Court convicted the two officers of using fatal violence against Kareem Hamdi, a lawyer who was detained and taken into police custody in February, allegedly for belonging to the banned Muslim Brotherhood movement.
The court over the weekend also started the trial of 739 defendants, including photojournalist Mahmoud Abu Zeid, whose detention for more than two years has sparked a global outcry.
After a brief session, however, the court adjourned the trial, in which neither Mr Zeid nor the other defendants appeared. The courtroom could not accommodate them, the state-run al-Ahram newspaper said.
In recent months, human rights advocates have claimed widespread abuses in Egypt, including arbitrary arrests. The government has called them “isolated incidents”.
The policemen sentenced on Saturday may appeal against their sentences. It was the second sentencing of a policeman for abuse in three days.
On Thursday, another court in the Delta province of Beheira sentenced an officer to five years in prison after convicting him in a separate case of the beating death of a detained man.
This month, three men reportedly have died in police custody in different parts of Egypt. Their families said they were tortured to death, an accusation the police denied.
In Mr Zeid’s case, the trial is to restart on Feb 6, the defendant’s brother, Mohammed, said.
The adjournment was announced after the defendants had not been brought to the makeshift courtroom at a police institution in southern Cairo, the brother said.
“Police prevented us from attending the procedural session, but lawyers told us that the judge delayed the trial until Feb 6,” Mohammed said.
The defendants did not appear because work to enlarge the courtroom’s iron cage to accommodate the large number of the accused have not been completed yet, al-Ahram reported.
Mr Zeid, also known by his nickname Shawkan, was arrested in August 2013 when security forces broke up a Cairo camp erected by protesters loyal to former Islamist president Mohammed Morsi, who was deposed by the army a month earlier.
More than 800 people and possibly as many as 1,000 were killed in the events at Rabaa al-Adawiya Square in eastern Cairo on Aug 14, 2013, according to Human Rights Watch.
The defendants in Mr Zeid’s case also include leaders from Morsi’s now-outlawed Muslim Brotherhood and supporters, charged with holding an unauthorised assembly, using violence against the authorities and blocking roads.
Several local and foreign rights groups have repeatedly called for the release of Mr Zeid, who has passed the two-year limit set for pre-trial detentions under Egyptian law.