A Abbassiya court Tuesday renewed the detention of a police captain and three lower-ranking police officers for 45 days over torturing to death Magdy Makeen inside Al-Amireya police station.
Prosecutors of west Cairo had earlier released six other, low-ranking police officers on LE3,000 bail each, in the same case.
The defendants are accused of beating the victim to death, causing him the injuries stated in the forensic medical report, and tarnishing the Interior Ministry's image.
Both the forensic report, as well as the testimony of other inmates during interrogations, proved that Makeen had been tortured.
Makeen's death was caused by someone standing on his back leading to a shock in the neural pathways of his spinal cord, resulting in clots in the lungs followed by death, the forensic report said.
In November 2016, the police reported that the victim was accused of drug possession; the victim's family denied this and accused one of the officers of torturing him to death.
Two other suspects who accompanied Makeen inside the cell said they were all tortured by low-ranking police officers at the police station, leading to the death of Makeen.
For their part, the police suspects denied the charges during the prosecution's investigations.
Torture inside police stations is commonly reported by local media with dozens of cases every year. Police impunity in such crimes was one main reason behind the January 25 revolution that toppled former President Hosni Mubarak.
In December of last year, President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said that “individual” incidents of detainee torture by police should not be generalized as an Interior Ministry policy, in an apparent defense of the police service against a recent surge of accusations of deadly torture of citizens.
