CAIRO - Acriminal court in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria Saturday heard seven witnesses in the high-profile trial of two policemen involved in the death of an Egyptian activist as the hearing was marred by chaos.
The court ordered the hearings be delayed unitl Wednesday. A key witness did not show up yesterday as the relatives of the defendants protested outside the courtroom.
The court heard seven witnesses in the
trial of policemen accused of assaulting Khaled Saeed. “However, the head of the
Forensic Medicine Authority submitted an apology from witnessing due to travel to
India," said a legal source, who asked not to be indentified for being not authorised to
speak to the media.
He added that the lawyers would be given a chance to defend the defendants as of the
next session.
Some disputes erupted between lawyers for the two suspected policemen and those
for Saeed as chief judge Moussa el-Nahrawi threatened to end the session when one of
them withdrew.
Also a police officer, who was also a witness in the case, quarrelled with one of the
lawyers, who claimed that he had badly treated him.
The court was surrounded by uniformed anti-riot officers and cordoned off with metal railings as relatives of the two defendants were allowed to hold a protest outside the court. Both entrances were guarded by plain clothes detectives who only let lawyers into the building.
The relatives of the two policemen and hundreds from the Public Movement to Support the Right, a group backing the defendants, raised banners and chanted slogans
against Saeed and his family accusing them of being "Zionists".
As the protest form the defendants’ supporters was running outside the court, there
was an obvious absence of protesters from the April 6 Movement and the National
Coalition for Change, non-governmental groups, who showed in the last two sessions.
Saeed died after he was dragged out of a café and beaten up, accroding to witnesses.
Apolice officer said Saed had swallowed a packet of drugs and choked last July. This
was backed by a forensic report.
