CAIRO: A police officer who was previously convicted of torturing a man to death has been reinstated and is now pressuring the families of the Jan. 25 martyrs to drop the lawsuits against policemen, a rights center claimed in a statement. Al-Nadeem Center for the Rehabilitation of Victims of Torture said the officer was even promoted to police detective in the North Giza investigations bureau. Al-Nadeem said lieutenant colonel Arafa Hamza Mahmoud Hassan was handed down a one-year sentence in 2002 after beating Ahmed Mahmoud Mohamed Tammam to death in Omraneya police station in 1999. Tammam was electrocuted and beaten with sharp objects until he died. "We received reports that the same officer is still working in the Ministry of Interior and that he has been promoted … He is trying to pressure the families of martyrs to withdraw the lawsuits they filed against police officers who killed protesters," the statement claimed. "We were also told that he is leading teams to pressure citizens in Imbaba after the [sectarian] events of the Marmina and Virgin Mary Churches when he, with his colleague officer Hossam Fawzy, allowed the Salafis to look for Abeer Fakhry who was said to be forcibly held inside the Marmina Church," the statement continued. The Nadeem center is demanding the suspension of officers involved in torture cases in police stations until all the investigations into cases of police officers charged with killing protesters are complete. "This officer has to be suspended from work and put on trial, as well as all officers involved in torture cases," head of Al-Nadeem Center Dr. Aida Saif Al-Dawla told Daily News Egypt. "Al-Nadeem Center has to remind the authorities that the first spark of the revolution came after accumulations of oppression led to calls for protests against police brutality on Police Day and that the police's legacy of arbitrary arrests and killing has doubled during the revolution," the statement concluded.
