Egyptian cops kill internet cafe patron

Egyptian internet activist Khaled Said, post-beating

An Egyptian whistleblower who exposed police corruption online was killed by Alexandria police in broad daylight. Khaled Said, 28, was seriously beaten by Egyptian police outside of an internet cafe and taken to a police station where he subsequently died.
Massive demonstrations in Cairo and Alexandria followed.
Said’s crime? He posted video to the internet of Egyptian police sharing profits from a drug deal.
Here is a translation of Arabic-language paper Al-Shorouk’s take on things:

Khaled was sitting inside an internet cafe when two informants came and asked everyone to show his national ID cards under emergency law.
When Khaled refused, the first perpetrator ( Mahmoud al-Falah ) tied his hands behind his back. When Khaled resisted, the informant started beating him violently and grabbed him to a neighboring building.
As they were beating him inside the building, Khaled started to bleed from his nose. Khaled passed out and the informants thought it is a trick from Khaled. So, they pulled his head and hit him against the metal gate to wake him up which resulted in breaking his skull after which he died.
Eyewitnesses say the beating continued for more than 20 minutes. Another eyewitness mentioned that Khaled was taken in the police car to the Sedi Gaber police station. He was brought back less than 15 minutes later and thrown in the street. An informant then called an ambulance to remove any liability. An eyewitness says that the attack directly resulted in the death which was due to brutal torturing of Khaled.

Pictures of the attack are shown above. The original article (عربي) is viewable here.
Said was a member of Alexandria’s tech-savvy middle class and bystanders snapped mobile phone cam pics of his corpse (above) to disseminate on the internet. The case is rocking Egypt — in less than 48 hours, 100,000+ Egyptians joined his Facebook memorial page. Egyptian blogger travellerwithin summed up the case’s ramifications in Egypt:

First, unlike most other cases of fatal police brutality, this one didn’t take place in the confines of a police station or in a remote village of Egypt’s countryside, but in broad daylight, on a street of the country’s second largest city. The victim was not in the police’s custody, or under arrest for a crime or other; he was, until minutes before the events.
Second, the very graphic images of the tortured body of Khaled Said also gained an unprecedented distribution among social media users.
Third, the government has failed to absorb the rising rage or to offer, as it did for instance with the torturers of Imad Al Kabir, to bring the perpetrators to justice. Quite on the contrary, its reaction is setting it on a collision course with the Egyptian civil society.
According to the respected Al-Nadeem Centre for the Rehabilitation of victims of violence and torture, a Thursday 70-person strong demonstration by the Sidi Gaber police station in Alexandria – where Khaled died – ended in the police beating up the demonstrators and arrested 11 persons, including two journalists and Khaled’s female cousin.

According to Reuters, Said posted video to the internet of police officers sharing profits from a drug deal. After Said’s death, Egyptian police told his family that he died due to a choking on a joint.
Said’s body, at time of death, had a twisted jaw, a mangled rib cage and a cracked skull.

Egypt cafe owner describes police beating death

The owner of an Egyptian Internet cafe said he witnessed police beating a young man to death and described the killing that has outraged rights activists.
The Interior Ministry has denied the allegations, claiming on Saturday that the 28-year-old was wanted by police and died after choking on a joint he swallowed when policemen sought to arrest him.
Activists say 28-year-old Khaled Said's death is an example of rampant abuses made possible by a three-decade-old emergency law they describe as a central tool of repression by President Hosni Mubarak's regime.
In a filmed interview posted online Sunday by a leading opposition party, cafe owner Hassan Mosbah said two police officers came into his establishment in the Mediterranean port city of Alexandria, dragged Khaled Said out into the street and beat him to death there. Pictures of Said's shattered face appeared on social networking sites after his death on June 6.
"We thought they would just interrogate him or ask him questions. But they took him as he struggled with his hands behind his back and banged his head against the marble table inside here," Mosbah said in an interview conducted by a journalist from the liberal opposition al-Ghad newspaper.
Mosbah said he told the police to take it outside and they hauled Said into the doorway of a nearby building. He did not emerge alive, said the cafe owner.
A fact-finding mission by the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights, confirmed the cafe owner's account.
"They dragged him to the adjacent building and banged his head against an iron door, the steps of the staircase and walls of the building," the Cairo-based organization said in a statement Sunday.
"Two doctors happened to be there and tried in vain to revive him but (the police) continued beating him," the statement said, adding that Said was well regarded by his friends.
The official police statement, however, said he was a known drug user and the cause of death was suffocation from "a cigarette containing drugs" lodged in Said's trachea. It also said he was wanted for convictions in absentia for theft and weapons possession, in addition to evading compulsory military service.
"The allegations reported by some circles have intentionally ignored all the facts in order to show that the human rights situation in the country has been violated," said the police statement.
Soon after his death, pictures of Said's shattered face appeared on social networking sites, outraging activists and turning into a rallying cry for Egypt's political opposition.

About 100 protesters gathered Sunday in downtown Cairo to demand the resignation of the interior minister, who controls the police force. A large number of security personnel vigorously beat back the crowds to keep them from reaching the ministry building.
Young activists held up side-by-side photos of Said, one showing him alive and the other a grisly image after his beating. "Down with Mubarak," demonstrators shouted.
Police arrested dozens.

Amnesty International and other rights groups on Friday demanded an independent investigation.
The "shocking pictures ... are a rare, firsthand glimpse of the routine use of brutal force by the Egyptian security forces, who expect to operate in a climate of impunity, with no questions asked," Amnesty said in a statement.

The victim's brother, Ahmed Said, maintained that the beating was revenge for his possession of a video showing the policemen dividing the spoils of a drug bust among themselves and so they confronted him at the cafe. He said he saw his brother's body a day after his death. His jaw was twisted, his rib cage mangled and his skull cracked, he said. Similar images were posted on bloggers' websites and he confirmed their authenticity.

Human rights groups say police torture — including sexual abuse — is routine in Egypt, but the government denies it is systematic. Reformers say the emergency law, in place since 1981, is to blame.
Cases of police brutality rarely result in punishment.

تجرى نيابة سيدي جابر برئاسة المستشار هاني شرف، تحقيقاتها الموسعة بشأن البلاغ المقدم من وليد سعيد محامي المجني عليه خالد محمد سعيد صبحي قاسم 28 سنة "صاحب شركة استيراد وتصدير"، يتهم فيه كلا من محمود الفلاح، وعوض الشهير باسم عوض المخبر، "مساعدين شرطة بقسم سيدي جابر"، بالتسبب في وفاته بسبب الاعتداء عليه بالضرب وسحله إلى القسم.

ترجع أحداث الواقعة إلى يوم الثلاثاء عندما كان المجني عليه يجلس داخل إحدى محلات الإنترنت الكائن بشارع بوباست بمنطقة كيلوباترا، حيث فوجئ بالمتهمين يقتحمان "الكافية نت" ويدخلان ويطلبان من المتواجدين إبراز تحقيق الشخصية بالتعرض وتفتيشهم بدون وجه حق تحت مسمى قانون الطوارئ، وعندما اعترض المجني عليه على طريقة تعامل المخبرين الهمجية والوحشية، قام المتهم الأول بتقييده من الخلف لشل حركته، وعندما حاول المجني عليه الخلاص منهما قاما بطرحه على الأرض وركله في البطن والصدر، واصطحابه إلى أحد المنازل المجاورة لمحل الإنترنت.

وواصل المتهمان الاعتداء عليه بالضرب المبرح والركل بأقدامهما في مختلف أنحاء جسده، مما جعله يفقد الوعي ونزف سيلا من الدماء من أنفه، واعتقد المتهمان أن هذه هي تمثيلية من المجني عليه، ثم حاول الثاني إفاقته بضرب رأسه في ترابزين سلالم العقار المشار إليه ما أدى لحدوث كسور بالجمجمة التي أودت بحياته.

وأكد عدد من شهود العيان لـ"الشروق"، أن واقعة الاعتداء كانت على مرأى ومسمع من الموجودين بالسيبر والمارة بالشوارع، مشيرين أن الضرب والاعتداء استمر لأكثر من 20 دقيقة متواصلة وسط توسلات واستغاثة ودموع المجني عليه.

وأضاف محمود علي موظف وأحد شهود الواقعة، أن المتهمين قاما باصطحاب المجني عليه وهو جثه هامدة إلى ديوان قسم شرطة سيدي جابر، ثم فوجئنا بعد أقل من 15 دقيقة بالمخبرين يعيدان جثته مرة أخرى إلى مكان الواقعة وتركوها مسجاة على الأرض، ثم قام أحدهما بالاتصال بسيارة الإسعاف لإخلاء مسئوليتهما، مؤكدا على وجود شاهد لتلك الواقعة سمع طبيب الإسعاف يقول إن: "واقعة الاعتداء تسببت في الوفاة وأنه لفظ أنفاسه الأخيرة نتيجة عمليه التعذيب الوحشي الذي تعرض شقيقه على أيديهما".

وفى ذات السياق أكد أحمد محمد سعيد شقيق المجني عليه – أمريكي الجنسية - في تصريحات خاصة لـ"الشروق" أنه علم من أصدقاء المجني أنه توفي إثر عمليه تعذيب تعرض لها على يد 2 من مخبري سيدي جابر، أثناء تواجده داخل "النت كافيه" على الفور ذهبت إلى المقدم عماد الدين عبد الظاهر رئيس مباحث قسم شرطة سيدي جابر للسؤال عن سبب القبض على شقيقي، أجابني أن شقيقي مدمن الأقراص المخدرة، وأرجع سبب الوفاة هو تناوله كمية كبيرة من الأقراص المخدرة داخل الحجز.

وأضاف في تصريحاته لـ "الشروق" أن أخي لم يتم حجزه في هذه الليلة بالتحديد داخل القسم أو غيرها، وأنه حسن السير والسلوك ويتمتع بسيرة طيبة بين جيرانه ومحبوب من جميع أصدقائه ومعارفه.

وأوضح شقيق المجني عليه قائلا: "عقب سماعي اتهام القسم لشقيقي توجهت على الفور إلى السفارة الأمريكية وأخطرتها بالواقعة بصفتي مواطن أمريكي قد يحميه الجواز الأمريكي بدلا من الجواز المصري الذي يهين أبنائه، مؤكدا إنني لن أتنازل عن حق شقيقي".

ووجه أحمد رسالة من خلال "الشروق"، إلى الرئيس محمد حسنى مبارك مطالبا فيها بصفته مواطن مصري وليس مواطن أمريكي بحق شقيقه المجني عليه الذي ضاعت حياته على يد مخبرين لا يملكون قدر من الرحمة والإنسانية، كما طالب اللواء حبيب العادلي وزير الداخلية أن يعاقب المخبرين المتسببين في الحادث، مؤكدا أن أمثال هؤلاء يحصدون كراهية الشعب لرجال الشرطة.

وقررت نيابة سيدي جابر أمس انتداب الطبيب الشرعي لتشريح جثة المتوفى وإعداد التقرير اللازم وصرحت بدفن الجثة.

ومن جانبها تجرى مديرية أمن الإسكندرية تحت إشراف اللواء محمد إبراهيم مدير الأمن تحقيقاتها الموسعة بشأن البلاغ المقدم من نجل المجني عليه ضد المخبرين حول الاتهامات الموجهة ضدهما.