MENYA: Police officer Mustafa Al-Sayed Abdel-Hamid has filed a lawsuit in a Menya court against the interior minister after an incident involving a state security car left him paralyzed. The incident is alleged to have taken place as Abdel-Hamid was working on security for a visit by the governor and a minister, who were inaugurating a project in the governorate. According to the plaintiff, "We got orders that there was a convoy of the governor and some of his guests who were on a visit to Menya governorate. Indeed, we hurried to set up checkpoints and roadblocks. We also evacuated bystanders from the streets. "Then state security cars came to comb the area. As the convoy moved, a state security car carrying a number plate No. 691 approached at high speed and hit me hard and then went away quickly. Abdel-Hamid says he was taken to the Menya university hospital and details of the incident were submitted to Menya police. After that, he says the security forces took him to Assiut general hospital, as medical equipment was not available in Menya. "I was shocked when I discovered that I d had my back broken and was afflicted with impairment in my four limbs, which resulted in a paralysis and permanent disability of seventy percent of my body, he said. He decided to file a lawsuit against the ministry after they refused him compensation of LE 40,000. The plaintiff says that the ministry appealed against the verdict on grounds that it did not attend the initial hearings. Moreover, Abdel-Hamid says the bailiff committed a crime when he alleged that the plaintiff had been killed in the incident. This disrupted the case, which was halted in order to correct the form of proceedings. He then submitted a report to the Maghagha prosecution against the bailiff, Mohamed Abdel-Hakam, on charge of forgery, but the bailiff failed to appear at his hearing. The strangest thing, as the plaintiff says, is that "the prosecution dropped the lawsuit I had filed against the bailiff, claiming that he was a relative of a counselor at the Ministry of Justice. Abdel-Hamid says that the counselor approached him to persuade him to drop the case in return for money, but he refused and insisted on proceeding with the case. He then lodged a complaint to the Ministry of Justice, but it later went missing, and as yet he has not received justice. Abdel-Hamid added: "This incident caused me disability and deprived me of work, particularly as I have a six-member family, which consists of me, my wife and five children, all of them in various stages of education. "They cannot make ends meet, especially after the ministry insisted on not paying compensation and deducted a large part from my pension, which is no longer enough for my monthly needs.
