CAIRO: Egyptian dailies Al-Badeel and Al-Masry Al-Youm reported Wednesday that two judges were assaulted as they attempted to enter Luxor International Airport in the early hours of Tuesday. The senior judges were at the airport preparing to board a flight to Cairo after the conclusion of their sessions in a Luxor court. Al-Badeel reported that the incident began after a stationed policeman demanded to see their tickets at the airport entrance. While one of the judges produced his ticket, the other informed the policeman that he had purchased his ticket by telephone and that it was at the Egyptair counter. He asked the policeman to verify his claim and produced evidence that he was a judge. The policeman allegedly refused and pushed the judge outside where a verbal altercation developed. Two police officers then allegedly became involved, verbally abusing the judges and physically assaulting them. Al-Masry Al-Youm presents a slightly different version of events, saying that the judges were summarily expelled without explanation from the airport by a policeman despite the fact that both men produced airplane tickets. An anonymous source with contacts within the public prosecution office, who spoke to Daily News Egypt on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media, confirmed that the incident had taken place. The judges had lodged a complaint against the police officers which will be investigated by the Prosecutor General's office. "This will likely bring the judiciary into conflict with the police, the source told Daily News Egypt. "Unlike his predecessor, the current Prosecutor General Abdel Meguid Mahmoud is unlikely to try to hush up the incident or shy away from taking action, he continued. Al-Badeel reported that head of the Judges' Club Zakaria Abdel Aziz had decided to send a delegation of judges to Luxor to investigate the incident, and that judges in Luxor had staged a sit-in in a court in Luxor protesting the failure to take any action against the policemen.
