CAIRO — A leading international human rights group on Thursday cast doubt on an Egyptian report about the death of an alleged victim of police brutality and urged authorities to further investigate the incident.
The New York-based Human Rights Watch cited testimonies of witnesses who said they saw plainclothes officers beat a 28-year-old businessman from Egypt's coastal city of Alexandria.
Khaled Said died after the June 6 encounter with the plainclothes officers. His family and Egyptian opposition groups said he was beaten to death by police.
The case became a rallying point for government critics who denounced it as an example of rampant police abuses under a three-decade-old emergency law during President Hosni Mubarak's rule. The case led to street protests in Cairo and Alexandria. The U.S. State Department called for a transparent investigation.
After Said's death, a photograph circulated showing his jaw split, teeth broken and blood pouring from his head.
Police officials denied Said died of torture, saying he was wanted for various legal offenses, and died after attempting to swallow a packet of drugs and choked to death. The damage to his face in the photograph was due to the autopsy, forensic doctors said in a state-owned newspaper.
On Wednesday, Egypt's prosecutor general said a second autopsy confirmed the police account of the death.
But HRW said there had been many discrepancies in the Egyptian investigation. It urged authorities to question and charge the two plainclothes officers, along with the local prosecutor whose initial probe failed to interview eyewitnesses and gather proper evidence.
"Witness accounts and the photographs of Khaled Said's mangled face constitute strong evidence that plainclothes security officers beat him in a vicious and public manner," said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch. "All those involved should be speedily interrogated, and the prosecutor should fully investigate what caused the fractures and trauma clearly evident on his body".
HRW's statement cited several eyewitnesses who said they had seen the beating of Said.
