Court acquits last remaining officers on trial for killing protesters

The Alexandria Criminal Court acquitted the last six remaining officers on trial for the killing of protesters during the January 25 uprising on Saturday, state owned MENA reported.The officers were accused of killing 83 protesters in a number of police stations in Alexandria.

This leaves just ousted President Hosni Mubarak, former Interior Minister Habib al-Adly and six of his aides on trial for killing protesters in 2011.

According to the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR), the courts have only convicted and sentenced three low-level security officers to prison since 2011 for the killing of over 800 protesters, two of whom are serving time in prison.

According to a report issued by EIPR early 2013, the total number of policemen charged with killing protesters amounted to 186.

Ahmed Ragheb, lawyer and executive director at the Hisham Mubarak Law Center, said the problem with cases of killing protesters in 2011 is the lack of evidence against defendants.

He explained that the police are collecting evidence against themselves in these cases, and therefore the evidence, or lack thereof, leads to acquittal.

Ragheb told Mada Masr that the evidence in most cases is not strong enough for the court to indict the defendants. “The real evidence that implicates the police has either been destroyed or ignored,” he added.

By the time EIPR’s report was issued in 2013, only 20 policemen had been indicted, five of whom had received sentences in absentia, with 13 receiving suspended sentences. Two low-ranking police officers received five-year sentences, with a LE10,000 fine for one of them, for killing protesters in Cairo.

One high-ranking officer was sentenced to one year of hard labor and a three-year suspension. Seven low-ranking officers were sentenced to 10 years in absentia in the same case of killing protesters in Giza.

Ragheb pointed to the formation of fact-finding committees as a result of the lack of strong evidence, but laments that their reports haven’t helped the prosecution much.

He believes the verdicts in the cases of police officers accused of killing protesters will ultimately affect the ruling in the case of Mubarak and Adly, who are currently still on trial for inciting to kill protesters in 2011.

“Mubarak and Adly are accused of inciting the killing of protesters, but if police officers are all acquitted, then who did they incite? There has to be a perpetrator who committed the crime,” he said.

“This will verify claims that Hamas, or whoever, killed Egyptians,” he added.

The defense in the case of the Alexandria police officers argued that the Muslim Brotherhood had planned to storm police stations during the uprising to free prisoners, including former President Mohamed Morsi, who was “implementing a foreign agenda and spying against his country,” privately owned Al-Masry Al-Youm reported.

The officers were not trying to protect police facilities, but intended to “escape the fire that engulfed the stations, since the attackers’ goal was to kill them,” the defense stated, referencing the Kerdasa massacre, which saw 16 police officers murdered, as proof that the Muslim Brotherhood are still “executing their plan.”

The defense also pointed out that the accusations against the defendants were leveled by Khalaf Bayoumi, a Muslim Brotherhood lawyer who is currently detained.

But the most negative effect that these verdicts will have, Ragheb warned, is that people will lose trust in the judiciary, especially when they compare these verdicts with other recent, and swift, ones handed down to Al-Azhar students or female protesters in Alexandria.

“It’s all political at the end of the day, and will lead to catastrophic results, because then people will take justice into their own hands,” he said.