Egyptian lawmakers demand interior minister be tried over pitch disaster

Cairo: More than one hundred Egyptian lawmakers Thursday called for putting Interior Minister Mohammed Ibrahim on trial in connection with football rioting that left 71 people dead.

Essam Al Erian, a lawmaker from the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice, told the parliament that Ibrahim should be charged with negligence of duty for the police's failure to stop fans from invading the pitch in the coastal city of Port Said Wednesday night following a local game between the home team Al Masri and their Cairo-based rivals Al Ahli.

Ibrahim, who took up his post last December, attended Thursday an emergency session of the Islamist-dominated parliament. He made no comment as he sat next to Prime Minister Kamal Al Ganzouri.

Footage broadcast on official television showed hordes of fans attacking the visiting team as security forces stood by watching the melee.

"This negligence includes the minister's failure to purge the police of tainted senior officers," Al Erian said. He accused the police of doing little to re-establish security in the country.

A series of bank robberies have been reported in several areas of Egypt in the past few days.

Al Erian said his proposal was endorsed by 143 members of the 805-seat parliament.

Addressing the session, the Islamist Speaker of parliament Saad Al Katatni said police had "gravely neglected" their duty in securing the match.

"What happened in Port Said was a massacre by all standards," he said. "The revolution is in danger," he added, referring to a popular revolt that swept long-standing president Hosni Mubarak across from power last year.

Al Ganzouri told the parliament he had sacked the governor of Port Said and the head of the Egyptian Football Association.

Al Ganzouri, who became prime minister last December, added that the security chief of Port Said would be probed over alleged negligence in securing the Wednesday match.

Several lawmakers, meanwhile, said the tragedy, the worst in Egypt's football history, should prompt an early presidential election.

"We should start immediately procedures for electing a new president for the country," said liberal MP Amr Hamzawi. The military rulers, who have been running Egypt's affairs since Mubarak's ouster, has set presidential polls for mid-June and promised to transfer power to a civilian administration by July.

"The (ruling) military council has failed to protect the people. Is there anything more precious than human life?" said Hamzawi.

As the parliament convened, hundreds of anti-military protesters were staging a mock funeral in the nearby Tahrir Square. "Down with the military," they shouted. "Real justice is retribution for all the martyrs."

Opposition activists and relatives of protesters killed during and following the uprising against Mubarak are angry at what they see as slow-paced trials for officials suspected of involvement in the slaying of the demonstrators.