CAIRO: Egypt's top prosecutor charged 75 people with murder and negligence in connection with a deadly soccer riot last month that raged in Port Said. At least 74 people were killed in the February 1 riot, with another dozen deaths in the riotous protests that followed. Those charged include nine police officers and two minors. Among the police officers are Maj. Gen. Issam Samak, who was Port Said's chief of security at the time of the riot. Samal has already been suspended. A statement by the Egyptian general prosecutor's office said the charges were based on video footage of the riot and the confessions of suspects. The riot began after a league game between Cairo's club Al-Ahly, and Port Said's Al-Masry. The home side, Port Said, won 3-1 – but bizarrely, their fans charged the field, wielding knives, swords and war clubs, where they attacked rival fans, police and players in a killing frenzy that lasted 30 minutes. The Port Said riot led to the cancelation of the soccer league and sparked days of clashes in Cairo between police and protesters accusing the Interior Ministry of orchestrating the gruesome event. Street art in the form of murals, which depict the victims (known locally as ‘martyrs') adorn the American University in Cairo's Tahrir campus, near the Ministry of Interior. In Egypt, where conspiracy theory is a national pastime, the streets, bars and cafés bubbled with ideas on what really caused the riot. Port Said residents claimed their fans obviously could never have done something so heinous, and that the crimes were committed by mysterious unnamed people attempting to tarnish their image. Other Egyptians were certain this was the work of the ubiquitous ‘unseen foreign hand' that is attempting to de-stabilize the country for unstated purposes. And then, there was another theory that the government intentionally allowed the riot to happen as a way of punishing Egyptians for the 2011 uprising that toppled Mubarak. What really happened?—it was likely incompetence, poor training and negligence on the part of security forces. Additionally, there had previously been serious clashes between aggressive soccer fans and the hated police forces at soccer games; and the security had perhaps been attempting to avoid exacerbating further unrest by deploying smaller amounts of police at the game. Regardless of what the impetus was behind the riot, almost 100 people lost their lives. BM ShortURL: http://goo.gl/xPyey Tags: 75 Charge, Egypt, featured, Port Said, Soccer Riot Section: Egypt, Featured Articles, Latest News
