Cairo: Dozens of Egyptian lawyers Thursday protested in Cairo over the mysterious death of a colleague while in police custody two days ago.
The protesters chanted slogans against the government and police as they marched inside a major court building in Cairo.
Kareem Hamdi, a 27-year-old lawyer, had been arrested earlier in the week. He was charged with belonging to the banned Muslim Brotherhood and torching a police vehicle. He reportedly died on Tuesday inside a police station in the northern Cairo district of Matariya, a stronghold of Islamists.
Lawyers have claimed that Hamdi’s body carried marks of torture.
Lawyers’ Associationhas held police responsible for his death and urged authorities to put suspected wrongdoers on an urgent trial.
The association’s chairman Sameh Ashur said the union would hold a crisis meeting on the incident.
“There should be a deterrence to anyone thinking of harming any lawyer,” Ashur said in a statement.
A spokesman for police, meanwhile, denied the torture claims and called for awaiting the findings of an autopsy on Hamdi’s body.
Chief Prosecutor Hesham Barakat Thursday ordered an investigation into the incident in response to a legal complaint filed by Hamdi’s colleagues, accusing police of torturing him to death.
Egyptian authorities have pursued a relentless crackdown on Islamists since 2013 when the military toppled president Mohammad Mursi of the Brotherhood.
Rights groups have in recent months cited an increase in alleged abuses by police, accusing the government of President Abdul Fattah Al Sissi of reviving the authoritarianism of long-time president Hosni Mubarak ousted in a 2011 uprising.
Al Sissi, who took office last year, has vowed not to condone any rights violations.
