Nine Egyptian policemen sentenced for beating vendor to death

An Egyptian court sentenced nine police officers to three years in prison after their conviction for beating to death a street vendor held at a police station. (File/AFP)

• Magdy Maken was arrested after an altercation with a policeman in Cairo’s El-Ameriyah neighborhood in 2016
• Hours after his arrest, Maken’s lifeless body was brought to a hospital with “torture marks,” his lawyer said

CAIRO: An Egyptian court on Saturday sentenced nine police officers to three years in prison after their conviction for beating to death a street vendor held at a police station.
The Cairo Criminal Court also acquitted a police officer in the case that dates back to November 2016 when the 53-year-old Magdy Maken, a fish cart vendor, was arrested after an altercation with a policeman in Cairo’s middle-class neighborhood of el-Ameriyah.
Hours after his arrest, Maken’s lifeless body was brought to a nearby hospital with “torture marks,” his lawyer Ali Al-Halawani told The Associated Press at the time.
The defendants, including a police captain, collapsed in the courtroom, and some of them cried after the judge uttered the verdict.
Saturday’s verdict can be appealed before a higher court.