CAIRO: A complaint accusing Egypt’s interior minister and Cairo’s security chief of ordering the beating of martyrs’ families outside Hosni Mubarak’s trial was referred Thursday to the East Cairo Prosecution.
The complaint accuses Interior Minister Mansour El-Essawy and Head of Cairo Security Directorate Mohsen Mourad of ordering police officers to beat the families of martyrs as they protested in front of the Police Academy where Mubarak’s trial over the killing of protesters during the Jan. 25 Revolution is taking place.
Prosecutor General Abdel Meguid Mahmoud referred the complaint, which requests a criminal investigation into the case, to the East Cairo Prosecution on Thursday.
The complaint said that martyrs’ families and supporters were attacked by security forces and thugs outside Mubarak’s trial, leaving many inured and preventing them from entering the courtroom.
"During three sessions of the trial, security forces never provided any kind of protection to the families of the martyrs and left them to the thugs of the previous regime by beating and insulting them," the complaint said.
Essawy and Mourad are accused of "premeditated arrangements" with police forces and thugs to attack the families.
"East Cairo Prosecution received the complaint based on the Prosecutor General’s decision and will start an investigation by listening to the testimonies of a number of rights lawyers and the testimonies of the families of the martyrs who were attacked," lawyer Mohsen El-Bahnasy, head of the Martyr Center for Human Rights, told Daily News Egypt.
"We will focus on proving the responsibility of Essawy and Mourad for the attacks against the families, in addition to what seems to be premeditated arrangements between thugs and police forces to attack the families of the martyrs," he added.
