Will Mubarak to be cleared and back to claim Egypt’s presidency?

Cairo- 31 December 2011

The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) said today that the Cairo Criminal Court’s verdict to clear all the police officers of killing protesters in front of ElSayeda Zainab police station on Jan. 28 and 29, issued last Thursday 29 December, might be a testing balloon to the public reaction, or even a step to open the door to similar verdicts in similar cases of murdering protesters during the Revolution of 25 January. The investigations in most of such cases are feeble and inexact which makes it difficult to prove the indicts guilty, unless the judges responsible for reviewing the cases order reinvestigation in a more fair manner and confining the charged police officers to prevent them from tampering with evidences or manipulating papers to falsely innocence.

In Dec 29, Cairo Criminal Court cleared all the charged police officers of murdering 5 citizens and attempting to murder other 6 in Alsayeda Zainab district in Cairo. The five charged police officers’ names are: ” Shady Mohamed Abdel Hameed, Ihab Abdel Monem Alsa’edy, associate investigation, Omar Hamdy AlKharrat, also associate investigation, Hisham Lotfy Mohamed, inspector, and Mohamed She’ban  Metwaly”. The innocence verdict was due to initiating investigations several months after the crime, setting the charged police officers free on bases of the claim that some of them were defending themselves, while other depended on alibi defense.

ANHRI said “Blood is more powerful than a court decision and the impunity of those who killed martyrs is clarifying bluntly the situation of justice in Egypt. For when setting charged police officers free, and initiating investigations months after the crime, then tampering with the condemnation evidences and falsifying ones to prove innocence is not something impossible.”

ANHRI also added “this case is not different from the other cases of killing about 840 Egyptian martyrs, police officers are still free, and in addition to the feeble investigations, they do exert pressures on witnesses and the families of martyrs to force them to change their testimonies or relinquish, and even manipulate evidences to prove themselves innocent, meanwhile the public prosecutor still turns a deaf ear to our claims to detain those indicts of killing in order to preserve justice and the rule of law, hence it will not be a surprise if Mubarak came back to claim Egypt’s presidency  from the Military council after being cleared too!”

ANHRI believes that there is nothing crueler than when justice fails people, or when those who are responsible for enforcing justice waste martyrs’ rights and bloods. For that, and for the military council confused management and the ongoing anti- human rights practices as well as holding the current public prosecutor on position, ANHRI is expressing its deep sorrow for it expects the state of rage and restlessness which prevails Egypt to continue and hold the Military Council and Public Prosecutor responsible for such situation.

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