CAIRO: North Cairo Attorney General Amr Qandil referred a low ranking policeman to a criminal court on charges of the premeditated murder of 30 protesters and the injury of 51 others, state-run media reported on Monday.
Mohamed El-Sunni opened fire at protesters outside El-Zawya El-Hamra police station for five hours using his machine gun during the Jan. 28 protests, dubbed the “Friday of Rage,” state-run daily Al-Akhbar said.
Based on the testimonies of 57 witnesses in the neighborhood, El-Sunni kept shooting demonstrators from inside and outside the police station building.
“If proved guilty, he will probably be sentenced to death as the penal code dictates,” said Nasser Amin, director of the Arab Center for the Independence of the Judiciary and the Legal Profession.
“Other than testimonies, in such cases, the collected evidence include the cartridges, the bullets removed from the victims’ bodies and matching them with his gun as well as the consumed bullets out of those in his possession,” Amin told Daily News Egypt.
Earlier last week, Prosecutor General Abdel-Meguid Mahmoud referred 100 policemen, including high ranks, to a criminal court over similar charges.
The first days of the anti-regime protests that led to the ousted of former president Hosni Mubarak saw violent clashes between security forces and demonstrators, leaving more than 680 dead and over 6,000 wounded, some seriously, according to human rights groups and official reports.
Meanwhile, the investigation into the incidents in Suez indicated that secret policemen infiltrated into the protests to kill protesters on Jan. 25 and the following days, daily independent El-Shorouk El-Gadid newspaper reported Monday.
Assistant deputy interior minister ordered the police directorate chief to hide the identities of 35 secret police officers summoned from Ismalia to disperse protests in Suez, the report added.
Suez witnessed the most intense clashes when the January 25 Revolution broke out as protesters demanded civil rights and an end to the Mubarak regime.
Live ammunition was used against protesters mostly on the city’s main streets of El-Arbein and El-Geesh.
The investigations supported by documents and testimonies of policemen present in the operations room in El-Arbein police station said that the plain clothes officers had a meeting there on Jan. 25 with the police directorate chief and the general security chief for the Canal area before they left at 6 pm to El-Arbein.
According to investigations, the officers were seen again on Sedky street where the first citizen was killed then they never returned to the police station. The officers kept receiving instructions from the two high-ranking officers on their cell phones.
The first Egyptian to die in the protests was from Suez, Mostafa Ragab Mohamed, shot dead on the night of Jan. 25.
“A total of 88 people were killed during protests [in Suez], while over 1,000 others were injured, many seriously, though official reports said only 29 were murdered,” a medical source previously told Daily News Egypt on condition of anonymity.
The source added that before Mubarak stepped down on Feb. 11, hospitals were ordered by the health ministry and government officials to reject any admission of patients with bullet injuries.
“At some point many were treated on the streets of Suez,” he said.
The chief of the police directorate and three officers in Suez were referred last week to a criminal court over charges of opening fire at protesters. They are currently being held in custody pending trial on April 17.
Former Interior Minister Habib Al-Adly will face the first trial hearing on April 24 before a criminal court on charges of premeditated murder of protesters, attempted murder of others as well as inflicting major damages to public and private property which had a negative impact on the economy.
Al-Adly denied during interrogation that live ammunition was used against protesters.
