Cairo: Egypt's Chief Prosecutor on Saturday ordered two policemen to stand trial on charges of "illegally arresting and physically torturing" a young activist whose death has triggered national anger.
The two policemen Mahmoud Salah and Awad Esmail, now in jail, will appear at the Criminal Court for involvement in the death of 28-year-old Khaled Saeed in the port city of Alexandria last month.
If convicted, the two detectives will be jailed to at least three years, according to legal experts.
Opposition and human rights groups have labelled Saeed as the martyr of the Emergency Law, which has been in force in Egypt for 29 years.
They say that the Emergency Law, recently extended for two more years, give police sweeping powers to detain suspects without trial.
Saeed's family say he had been beaten to death outside a cyber café for posting an internet video clip showing policemen joining in sharing the spoils of a drug bust.
A second autopsy on Saeed's body has cleared police of his killing and said he died after choking on a bag of drugs.
The European Union has expressed concern about Saeed's death, a move that drew an angry response from the Egyptian Foreign Ministry that denounced it as an "unacceptable interference" in the country's affairs.
