Egypt's Court of Cassation overturned on Saturday a five year jail sentence issued to two national security police officers over the torturing of a lawyer to death while in custody in 2015, ordering a retrial. In December 2015, a Cairo Criminal Court found the two officers guilty of beating lawyer Karim Hamdy in the Matariya police station to death and of attempting to extract a confession under duress in February of that year, and sentenced the two officers to five years hard labour. The officers in the case had interrogated Hamdy in the police station on illegal weapons possession, involvement in anti-government violence, and belonging to the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood group. A forensic medicine report said the victim sustained fractures to his ribs and suffered a cerebral haemorrhage. In recent months, several policemen have been referred by prosecution to criminal court over abuse related charges. Last September, a Cairo misdemeanour court sentenced nine lower-ranking policemen to three years in prison over assaulting two doctors at Matariya Teaching Hospital in January, an incident that sparked anger, leading doctors to hold a protest at the Doctors Syndicate to demand the policemen stand trial and for the health minister to be sacked.
