Public Prosecutor Abdel Meguid Mahmoud on Thursday approved the transfer of two police officers and two members of the secret police to Egypt's Criminal Court. The four men stand accused of torturing a suspect to death. The suspect had been arrested on drug charges and was being detained at the Sayeda Zeinab police station at the time of the alleged abuses. The move came after a report was issued by the Department of Forensic Medicine, which validated witness accounts describing the defendants as having beaten and tortured the victim to death inside the police station. The prosecution charged the defendants with unwarranted brutality and with beating the victim to death. According to the forensic report, the victim--Farouk Mohamed Mahmoud al-Sayed--died after being severely beaten. According to the report, the autopsy revealed the presence of injuries and swollen hands, indicating that his hands had been bound together. The report also revealed the presence of scattered abrasions on his neck in addition to a bruise below the right eye, suggesting the victim was struck with a blunt object. The report went on to say that the victim had abrasions on the back of his forearms and legs, which is consistent with statements from other detainees who witnessed the incident. The report was also consistent with statements by eyewitnesses who said the victim was placed on the floor on his chest with his hands and feet bound behind his back, which affected his breathing and led to what is known as "positional asphyxia." According to the victim's family, he was arrested on 20 September 2009, while on his way to visit his elderly mother, on charges of possessing narcotic substances. The family also said that four days prior to his death, officials at the police department had prevented his mother from visiting him on the pretext that he was sleeping. The case was filed by the victim's wife, Taqwa Ali Mohamed, who accused police officers at the Sayeda Zeinab Police Station of assaulting and torturing her husband, and hanging him inside the police station for four days until he died. A security source, for his part, claimed that "severe hypertension" had caused the victim's death--a claim reiterated by one of the accused police officers, who also said the victim had been handcuffed "for his own safety and the safety of the other detainees, since he suffered from a mental disorder." Translated from the Arabic Edition.
