Egyptian prosecutor orders new autopsy for victim of alleged police beating

Egypt orders new autopsy for police beating victim

CAIRO — Egypt’s prosecutor general on Tuesday ordered a new autopsy for an alleged victim of police brutality, following opposition claims that the young man was beaten to death.

The death of Khaled Said, 28, has become a rallying point for government critics who say it is an example of rampant police abuses made possible by a three-decade-old emergency law they describe as a central tool of repression by President Hosni Mubarak’s regime.

For its part, the U.S. State Department expressed its concern over the case and called for a transparent investigation, urging Egypt to “hold accountable whoever is responsible,” spokesman P.J. Crowley told reporters.

Said died on June 6 following an encounter with two plainclothes policemen at an Internet Cafe in the port city of Alexandria. His family and human rights groups cite witnesses that he was beaten to death in the street. A picture circulated after his death showed his jaw split, teeth broken and blood pouring from his head.

Police officials denied Said died of torture, saying the young man was wanted for various legal offenses, and died after attempting to swallow a packet of drugs and choking to death. The damage to his face in the photograph was due to the autopsy, forensic doctors said in state newspapers.

The ministry statement and the initial investigation in the case outraged activists and other Egyptians who viewed the official response as a dismissive cover up. One government newspaper even referred to Said as the “marijuana martyr” in an apparent slap to activists who had dubbed him the “emergency law martyr.”

Said’s body will now be exhumed and re-examined by the country’s top coroners.

Said’s death has come at a particularly sensitive for Egypt as government officials have been facing pressure from the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva to investigate torture offenders and revise their narrow legal definition of torture.

The government pledged to implement the council’s recommendation and prosecute offenders, but denies that torture is systematic.

The case has prompted activists to take to the streets. Protesters gathered outside the police station in Said’s hometown after the photos emerged and demanded the culprits be brought to justice. A larger protest on Sunday in Cairo near the ministry responsible for the police saw security forces beating demonstrators and arresting dozens.

Hossam Bahgat, the director of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, said Said’s death touched many nerves because it shattered the illusion that only activists or criminals are beaten by police.

“The fact that it (torture) led to death is particularly striking. The details served to highlight that no one is safe, that it could happen to anyone,” he said.