CAIRO: The judiciary committee tasked with the acknowledgment of responsibility for the killing of Khaled Said failed to show up in an Alexandria Court on Saturday, forcing the case to be postponed yet again. Policemen Awad Ismael Soliman and Mahmoud Salah face charges of killing Said on June 6, 2010, after beating him to death in the attempt to drag him out of an Internet cafe where he was sitting, and arrest him without any apparent reason. As pictures of the disfigured body of 28-year old Said emerged from the scene, popular unrest broke out, asking for the policemen's prosecution. It was a major catalyst in the January 25 protest movement that ousted former President Hosni Mubarak. In complete defiance of evidence, the policemen stated Said died upon swallowing a dose of hashish he was illegally carrying. Famous Facebook page “Kullina Khaled Said” (“We are all Khaled Said”) gathered general outrage online since his death. Wael Ghonim, Google employee and one of the administrators of the page, is now widely known as one of the young voices of the January 25 revolution. Police control is gradually coming back to Cairo streets after suddenly disappearing following clashes against anti-Mubarak demonstrators that led former Mubarak to resign in early February. As National Security Service “Amn ed-Dawla” has been recently dismantled and former Interior Minister Habib el-Adly charged with killing of peaceful demonstrators beginning March, national security still provisionally lays in the hand of the Army. BM
