{"id":26853,"date":"2016-07-13T02:52:14","date_gmt":"2016-07-13T02:52:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/egypt-sentences-police-officers-over-detainee-s\/"},"modified":"2016-07-13T02:51:40","modified_gmt":"2016-07-13T02:51:40","slug":"egypt-sentences-police-officers-over-detainee-s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/egypt-sentences-police-officers-over-detainee-s\/","title":{"rendered":"Egypt sentences police officers over detainee’s death"},"content":{"rendered":"

{Beating to death of 45-year-old man under police custody sparked riots in the city of Luxor in November.}<\/p>\n

An Egyptian court has sentenced six policemen to up to seven years in prison over the death of a detainee in the southern city of Luxor.<\/p>\n

The Qena Criminal Court convicted policeman Samir Imam, 24, on Tuesday and sentenced him to seven years for “beating (the detainee) to death”.<\/p>\n

Another five officers were sentenced to three years.<\/p>\n

The court also ordered the Interior Ministry to pay 1.5 million Egyptian pounds ($170,000) to the man’s family.<\/p>\n

Seven policemen were acquitted. The policemen can appeal the verdict.<\/p>\n

The death of 45-year-old Talaat Shabeeb in police custody in November sparked riots in Luxor. His family accused police of beating him to death, saying they saw bruises on his body.<\/p>\n

Rights groups say torture is widespread in Egyptian detention facilities.<\/p>\n

They allege a culture of impunity in which police are rarely held to account over accusations of torture of suspects and have called for an independent body to investigate.<\/p>\n

But authorities say abuses are rare.<\/p>\n

The interior ministry has said it would investigate all abuse allegations.<\/p>\n

{{Police brutality}}<\/p>\n

Public anger over allegations of police brutality has been bubbling over the past months, with several incidents spilling over into skirmishes and protests, five years after the ministry’s officers were a major focus of a 2011 uprising.<\/p>\n

An end to police brutality was one of the key demands of the uprising which ended Hosni Mubarak’s 30-year rule.<\/p>\n

Unlike in the past, the families of those who have died in custody have been vocal in their demands for transparent investigations.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors had ordered the trial in December after a coroner’s report found Shabeeb had received blows to the back and neck that had broken his vertebrae and severed his spine.<\/p>\n

Rashidi was picked up by police at a cafe in Luxor and was dead within hours.<\/p>\n

Police accused him of dealing in drugs. His family denied that and a cousin said they had been seeking redress days after Rashidi was involved in a public spat with a policeman.<\/p>\n

They said Rashidi, in his 40s, worked in a tourist bazaar but had fallen on hard times as the 2011 uprising had hit tourism.<\/p>\n

A riot erupted in a Cairo suburb in April when a policeman shot three people after an argument over the price of a cup of tea and killed one of them.<\/p>\n

In February, a policeman shot dead a driver in the street in an argument over a fare, prompting hundreds to protest outside the Cairo security directorate.<\/p>\n

Also, according to reports, more than 1,000 supporters of former President Mohamed Morsi have been killed in clashes with police since President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi overthrew him in July 2013. More than 600 of them were killed in a single day when police dispersed a Cairo protest camp.<\/p>\n

\"Public<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{Beating to death of 45-year-old man under police custody sparked riots in the city of Luxor in November.} An Egyptian court has sentenced six policemen to up to seven years in prison over the death of a detainee in the southern city of Luxor. The Qena Criminal Court convicted policeman Samir Imam, 24, on Tuesday […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[100],"byline":[2474],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-26853","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-africa","byline-al-jazeera"],"bylines":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26853","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26853"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26853\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26853"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=26853"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=26853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}