European experts say the two autopsies on the body of Khaled Said failed to meet even minimum international standards, reports Mohamed El-Sayed The Alexandria Criminal Court has adjourned the trial of the two undercover policemen implicated in last month's death of 28-year-old Khaled Said in Sidi Gaber, Alexandria, to 25 September. Warrant Officer Mahmoud Salah and Sergeant Awad Ismail will remain in custody until then. Lawyers for the Said's family have also called for the interrogation of five investigating officers from Sidi Gaber Police Station who they say were directly involved in ordering Said's murder. "The family's legal team has called for the charge sheet to be changed from 'using physical violence and illegal arrest' by the two plain-clothes policemen to premeditated murder," Mohamed Abdel-Aziz, a member of the team, told Al-Ahram Weekly. Hundreds of sympathisers had gathered in front of the court, chanting "the autopsy report is fake" and "bring the minister of torture [Interior] to justice". Many protesters were harassed by riot police who cordoned off the protest. Relatives of the two accused policemen and a number of people believed to have been hired by the police also gathered holding banners that read: "No to agents: the judiciary is our resort and the police are protecting us." Meanwhile, the Al-Nadeem Centre for the Rehabilitation of Prisoners and Victims of Violence published a review of the two official autopsies on Said's body, conducted by two of Europe's leading forensic experts. Duarte Nuno Vieira, chief forensic pathologist, professor of forensic medicine and forensic sciences and head of the National Institute of Forensic Medicine of Portugal, and J�rgen L Thomsen, chief forensic pathologist, professor of forensic medicine and head of the Institute of Forensic Medicine of Odense, concluded that the first autopsy conducted on Said's body failed to meet even the minimum international standards for forensic autopsies. They found that "the supposedly compelling diagnosis of death by asphyxia is not sufficiently supported by the data provided, and most of the aspects described, such as cyanosis or congestion, are non-specific and inconclusive". The absence of any photographic evidence of Said's aditus laryngis with the alleged packet of marijuana in place during the first autopsy "reinforces the superficiality of the autopsy and the unreliability of the conclusions reached". The second autopsy, conducted by a three-member committee assigned by the prosecutor-general had, they concluded, "the same weaknesses and deficiencies as the first, and is much beneath the minimum international standards acceptable" even though it was "a little more careful" than the initial examination. "The deficiencies, inadequacies and incongruence in the reports of the two autopsies performed on the cadaver of Khaled Mohamed Said Sobhi clearly make it impossible to reach any firm conclusions about the circumstances surrounding his death and the cause of it," the two international experts concluded. Abdel-Aziz told the Weekly that the review would be used during the trial to refute the conclusions reached in the two official autopsies, which claimed to provide conclusive evidence that Said died as a result of asphyxiation. International and local concern over the conduct of the case was also fanned when Tamer El-Sayed, one of the eyewitnesses who testified to the brutal attack on Said by the two policemen, was attacked by nine assailants armed with knives in the Cleopatra district of Alexandria. "If justice is to be done in this case, the Egyptian authorities must ensure that the witnesses to the beating, as well as the dead man's family and those working to bring out the truth, are protected from threats, violence and intimidation, and feel able to freely testify in court," Amnesty International said in a statement. Said's uncle, Ali Qassem, said in a TV interview earlier this week that the entire family "live in fear because of the threats they receive on a daily basis". The series of Friday silent vigils, called for by the "My Name is Khaled Said" group on the social networking website Facebook, continue. Last Friday hundreds of people observed a silent evening vigil in Cairo, Alexandria, Gharbiya, Beni Sweif, Assiut, Fayoum and Menoufiya. Members of the opposition movements Kifaya, the 6 April Youth Movement, the Revolutionary Socialists and the National Democratic Front Party joined the vigil. Protesters have called for senior officers at Sidi Gaber Police Station to be added to the list of the accused.
