New video probe launched

CAIRO: The Ministry of Interior ordered security services to discover the identity of a female suspect apparently being tortured by police in a video publicized by the press, a security source said Monday. A still frame from a video published on the front pages of the independent dailies Al-Masry Al-Youm and Al-Fajr Sunday reportedly showed a screaming woman, tied to a bar hung between two chairs, being interrogated. The short video, available on the Internet and showing a young woman painfully confessing to murder, was described as a police interrogation. The order for an investigation comes hot on the heels of the detention of two policemen on Dec. 27 on charges of sexually assaulting a minibus driver after another graphic video was posted on the web. Human rights activists both inside and outside Egypt have repeatedly alleged that police use torture and abuse as a routine tool during questioning – a charge the interior ministry denies.