Egyptian prosecutors on Wednesday ordered a policeman detained for four days pending investigations over the death of a fish street vendor in police custody last week, a judicial source said.
According to his family's account, fish cart vendor Magdy Makeen, 53, was arrested last week after a brawl with a policeman and was beaten and tortured to death while in custody at a police station in Cairo's middle-class neighborhood of El-Ameriyah.
Videos of Makeen's bloodied body bearing bruises later surfaced on social media.
Interior ministry spokesperson Tarek Attiya has denied that Makeen was tortured, saying that he died from diabetes-related complications after he was arrested along with two other men. A judicial official said last week that Makeen was arrested for possession of drugs.
Forensic Medicine Authority chief Hisham Abdel-Hamid said earlier this week it would take the authority around three weeks to determine the true cause of the vendor's death.
Days following Makeen's death, another police officer was sentenced to life in prison for killing a street vendor earlier this year during an altercation over the price of a cup of tea. The incident sparked demonstrations at the time against police violations.
The interior ministry has stated that such violations represent isolated incidents, while critics believe that policemen still act within a climate of impunity.
