CAIRO: The Cassation Court refused on Sunday an appeal by a police officer against a five-year prison sentence handed down against him. Police colonel Akram Suleiman was convicted of misuse of force, possession of an illegal weapon and causing permanent disability in November 2009 after the Alexandria Criminal Court held him responsible for a brutal assault against a mentally disabled man in July 2008. Ragai Sultan spent three days in intensive care after suffering a broken rib and shoulder, a fracture in the neck and a brain haemorrhage necessitating surgery. A juvenile crime squad led by Suleiman arrested Sultan on the evening of July 22, 2008, as he walked along Alexandria's Corniche. Sultan's brother eventually found him the next day — after he had filed a missing person report — unconscious in a hospital. Suleiman's sentencing was roughly the sixth conviction of a police officer for brutality since 2007. The heaviest sentence was handed down in November 2007 to a police officer and two policemen, each sentenced to seven years imprisonment, after they were found guilty of killing Nasr Ahmed Abdallah, who died after he was dragged along the ground and was beaten by police in a police station in Mansoura.
