Update: Prosecution orders 4-day detention of policeman accused of killing tea seller

East Cairo prosecution ordered on Wednesday the four-day detention of a low-ranking police officer accused of killing a tea seller in New Cairo pending investigations. 

The officer denied the charges, saying he was firing at armed masked men who were driving by on a motorcycle, according to the state-owned Al-Ahram newspaper.

News that a low-ranking police officer shot and killed a tea seller in New Cairo on Tuesday morning, and injured two others, spread rapidly in local media and online, as several eyewitnesses uploaded footage of the incident and its aftermath. 

The Interior Ministry released a statement on its official Facebook page confirming that policeman Zeinham Abdel Razek shot the seller after a dispute over the price of tea, adding that the argument escalated until it involved others in the area.

People at the scene told Mada Masr there was an altercation between a policeman and a tea seller after the low-ranking officer refused to pay for a cup of tea.

According to one eyewitness, the policeman shot the seller and a bystander who tried to intervene, killing the seller and injuring the bystander. 

Another eyewitness told Mada Masr the policeman fired on the man with a machine gun, which he lost control of, resulting in the injury of two bystanders. 

Two other police personnel witnessed the incident and took the responsible policeman away, others told a Mada Masr reporter at the scene. 

Angry bystanders then attacked the police car of a different officer, eyewitnesses say, flipping it over and breaking the windows. Pictures on social media show a damaged police car with a smashed window shield. The car was later collected by traffic authorities.

Security forces stood by while bystanders chanted anti-government slogans for a while and then arrested at least five people, one onlooker said. 

The two injured bystanders were taken to hospital for treatment and an investigation was opened into the incident, the privately owned Al-Masry Al-Youm newspaper cited an Interior Ministry official as saying. 

Several eyewitnesses posted footage relating to the incident on social media. One video, captioned “Good morning Egypt, a policeman kills a young man,” shows a number of people crowded around a police car and a man showing a bullet shell to the camera. 

Another user posted several pictures of a police car with the window shield shattered, saying, “I was going to work today when I saw this disaster. A policeman fired on three people with live bullets and one of them died.” He added that the policeman fled when tension built and it looked like the family of the man might make things difficult for him. 

Another video shows the body of a dead man covered in a blanket. A man in the video says, “I swear to God the man killed him.” The video also shows a police car in the background. 

“A policeman killed this young man with bullets in front of our eyes,” another user posted, saying a different officer arrived at the scene after the responsible policeman left. 

A number of videos also show outraged people chanting at the scene. “The Interior [Ministry] are thugs,” and, “Down with the military government.”

This is not the first time police have shot civilians in public in recent months. In February, protests broke out after an officer shot a 24-year-old driver through the head in Darb al-Ahmar. Angry friends and relatives of the driver beat the officer and thousands surrounded Cairo Security Directorate chanting anti-government slogans.

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Note: This piece previously stated the incident took place in Rehab compound in New Cairo, and has been amended to state it was actually in an area outside the gated compound.