Egypt's Uprising has Link to Marijuana Prohibition

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that two police who are accused of brutally killing a young man in Alexandria Egypt have escaped jail and are at large. The death of Khaled Said helped trigger Egypt’s popular uprising. The escape occurred when police fled their posts during clashes on Jan. 28, and police stations throughout Alexandria, Egypt’s second largest city, were set on fire, the defense and prosecution lawyers told The Wall Street Journal on Sunday.

Witnesses say that Said was beaten by police in an Alexandria Internet Cafe after he was arrested in June. Gruesome pictures of his misshapen and unrecognizable face after the beating that left him dead were posted on a Facebook page that protested his treatment. It was his death under police custody that became a rallying point. It was the facebook page protesting his death and showing the pictures of his beaten face that was the first to call for Egyptians to take to the streets against the government last month. The police defense is that Mr. Said chocked to death on a bag of marijuana that he tried to swallow when he saw policemen come into the Internet cafe. The lawyer for the police has said that the damage to Mr. Said’s face occurred during an autopsy.

The state charged the policemen who allegedly killed Said with unlawful arrest and torture. The state prosecutors have since dropped the torture charge in January. The limited charges symbolized to many the impunity that Egyptian police have enjoyed while abusing their power. Prosecutors rested their case on Jan. 22, just days before the protests began. The defense was due to begin their arguments on Feb. 26. The lawyer for the man killed says that the charge of unlawful arrest will mean that the police would only serve a few weeks even if they were convicted. The family is trying to persuade the courts to add the charge of murder.

The lawyer who heads the defense team confirmed on Sunday that the two police who were being tried for the crime escaped from the security police base in Alexandria where they were being held. He said he has since talked to one of the men who told him that the police opened the detention center gates when the base was being overwhelmed by thugs. He said that he believes the two men will turn themselves in at a later date.

The spark that began Egypt’s revolution came when Mr. Said, a small-framed 28 year old walked into the Spacenet Cafe, one of his regular hangouts just yards away from where he lived with his mother. The cafe’s owner said he saw the two men in plain clothes and pistols on their belts come in and begin hitting Mr. Said. He said they picked the small man up and started swinging him headfirst into a marble shelf. The owner of the cafe and his sons ran to push the policemen out, but they left dragging Mr. Said by the hair. A crowd gathered and watched as the two men smashed Mr. Said’s head repeatedly against an edge of some stone stairs. A doctor in the crowd was heard shouting to the policemen, “what are you doing, he is already dead?” as the beating continued. According to a family lawyer, Mr. Said was a target because he posted a video clip on youtube that purports to show the policeman dividing up a bag of confiscated marijuana with others to resale on the street. The clip was found on Mr. Said’s computer after his death. The family said he surreptitiously downloaded the video to his cellphone using a Bluetooth device while one of the policemen was showing to his friends in the Cafe.

According to lawyers for the policemen, they say the policemen were looking for Mr. Said in connection with two other cases of draft dodging and theft, but when they confronted him he resisted arrest. They say the defense will produce witnesses that will testify that Mr. Said’s face was unblemished until he arrived at the morgue. Senior forensic pathologists from Denmark and Portugal have dismissed the two Egyptian coroner’s reports that list his death was due to choking on a 3 inch by 1 inch bag of marijuana. The family says the choking was faked, and have since produced a certificate that confirms Mr. Said’s military service. His killing sparked a series of demonstrations in Alexandria and Cairo last year demanding an end to torture by the police.  Victims’ rights groups in Egypt say police abuses have rarely been pursued and even less often, successfully prosecuted. A Human Rights Watch report released on Jan. 30  called torture in Egypt “an epidemic.” That report estimated that 5,000 people were being held in jail without trial in Egypt some for a decade.