Cairo Criminal Court acquits five police officers accused of killing protesters last January, reports Reem Leila On 29 December Judge Assem Abdel-Hamid Nasr of Cairo Criminal Court acquitted five police officers of the murder of protesters in January 2011. The policemen had been charged with killing five protesters, and the attempted murder of a further six, in front of Downtown Cairo's Al-Sayeda Zeinab police station. The court accepted the defence of the two officers who claimed they were acting to protect themselves and rejected the case against the remaining three for lack of evidence. The 18 days of protests which began last January and culminated in the ouster of president Hosni Mubarak saw many bloody clashes around police stations. More than 850 protesters were killed in the violence and many thousands injured. Families of those shot by the security forces say they have been shocked by the ruling. Not so Major General Sameh Seif El-Yazal, an expert on security issues. He points out that Article 102 of Law 109/1971 allows police officers to use force when necessary, and to fire live ammunition to disperse any crowds deemed to threaten public security as long as a warning is issued in advance. Any order to use live ammunition must, El-Yazal added, was issued by a higher ranking officer than those being tried. The defendants were, therefore, only following orders. "According to the law they are innocent," insists El-Yazal. "In order to prove the five officers guilty it must be shown that they were in violation of the law, which is not the case. The judge must also have no doubt that these particular officers killed these particular protesters. There was no evidence to show this." "The plaintiff's lawyers are unlikely to win any appeal against the verdict, which was as expected." The victim's lawyers have speculated that the verdict could well signal what will happen in the trial of Mubarak, his former interior minister Habib El-Adli and six senior police officials who are accused of ordering security forces to open fire on thousands of unarmed demonstrators. "The verdict was politically motivated," says one victim's family's lawyer Hashim Omran. "It is an attempt to pave the way for a similar verdict, or a minimum sentence, being issued in the Mubarak case." Omran, who is waiting for the full text of the ruling before launching an appeal, hopes to have the verdict overturned. In response to the judgement the families of 30 victims of the security forces protested in front of the headquarters of the Supreme Court of Justice on New Year's Eve. A statement issued by the protest's organisers said that the families of victims still had faith in the judicial system. But Mohamed Radwan, whose brother was shot dead in front of Al-Sayeda Zeinab police station, argues that an independent fact-finding committee will have to investigate the deaths if there is to be any hope of the truth being uncovered. On 1 January Shubra Criminal Court postponed a case filed against four police officers for killing protesters until 4 February.
