The trial of the man charged with the infamous Minya murders started amidst controversial allegations. Pierre Loza investigates No one can forget last year's bizarre serial killings which took the lives of 10 people, including toddlers, in the rural village of Shamseddin just outside Minya. Mohamed Ali, 26, was charged with the meticulously orchestrated murders, where the genitalia of victims were mutilated and hidden in the vicinity. But the mystery and controversy surrounding the case continues to this day. People cannot fathom how one person could have single-handedly killed and mutilated 10 people in three different homes, without so much as a scream or disturbance of any kind. A lawyer, who was among the victims, was murdered as family members slept in the room next door. Ali's family tenaciously claim that his confession was obtained through torture and threats made against his family. When questioned by the court on the opening day of the trial on Saturday, Ali testified that he was tortured using electric shock. This confirms his father's claim that he could hear his son's screaming in agony while being interrogated. The defense team also mentioned the threats made by security officials to members of Ali's family. In a recent development, the forensics report recorded the removal of some of the victims' corneas which were never recovered. This finding reawakened speculation, that the killings were motivated by trade in human organs. And ever since Al-Menoufiya MP Talaat El-Sadat embarked on a quest for Ali's innocence, the trial has taken on a political dimension. As a member of Ali's defense team, Sadat is very vocal about his belief that the case is an Interior Ministry foul-up. "This case is basically the state against Mohamed Ali," asserted Sadat, noting that upon arriving in court for the trial's first session, he was met with crowds of hostile demonstrators. They were mostly the victim's families who were transported to the court in Interior Ministry vehicles. "When we were discussing this case in the People's Assembly, it was already clear that the Interior Ministry wanted to portray Ali as deranged," stated Sadat. "Just like the man who attacked the churches in Alexandria, or the other man in Mansoura who went inside a mosque and started beating people up. These two men should be punished and not simply dubbed crazy." Sadat believes the investigation's preliminary procedures were biased because they assumed that the perpetrator of the Minya massacre must be mentally ill. "Like many of Egypt's youth, Ali is someone who has no prospects of a job or a future, so I think it's understandable that he might be a little depressed," said Sadat. A point of contention that seems to add to the nebulous nature of the case is the fact that Ali was detained for four days without charge, before facing prosecutors -- the period during which his family claims he was tortured. Rafaat Abdel-Hamid, another member of Ali's defense team, believes that a pertinent legal glitch in the case's proceedings lies in the fact that the arrest warrant was based on the fact that Ali was a deranged person, who suffered from multiple personality disorder. But after 85 days under observation by a consortium of doctors at Abbassiya Mental Hospital, Ali was proclaimed sane. Forensics reports are also being contended, since an integral point made in them was that the blood of one the victims was found inside one of Ali's shoes. "The shoe they brought forward as evidence is a size 42; I don't think they realise that Ali's shoe size is 45," noted Abdel-Hamid. The controversial findings prompted the court to ask the forensics expert to re-analyse the evidence, and present his findings at the next trial session in September. According to Sadat, the evidence was not sent to the Criminal Evidence Unit (CEU) through a direct order from the prosecution, which contradicts proper legal procedure. There was also a contradiction between the forensics report and the report made by CEU; CEU stated that blood was found on Ali's clothes, but forensics asserted that not a single drop of blood was detected on his galabiya. Forensics reported that male genitalia were severed, which demises prosecution claims that the murder weapon was a butcher knife -- also never recovered. "How can they convince me that the weapon used was a butcher knife, when the cuts did not even penetrate the outer layers of the victims' stomachs," questioned Sadat. "This is prudent dissection, not the work of a simple peasant who doesn't even have a high school diploma using a butcher knife." As for the eyewitness who claimed he saw Ali walking away from the crime scene at 2am on the night of the murders, the defense team sought to discredit his testimony on the basis that he only saw a man's back. "The witness said he could tell it was Ali from the way he walked, but it is preposterous to identify someone who has no special features, from behind, 20 metres away," insisted Sadat. The highly political tone adopted by Sadat presents the case as a political jab at the establishment. "I've asked for the resignation of the Minister of Interior if this boy is found innocent," pronounced Sadat. "Because this proves that they've been lying to us from the very beginning."
