By AFP
WASHINGTON: The United States expressed concern Monday over the death of a 28-year-old man reportedly beaten by police in the northern Egyptian port city of Alexandria.
Washington also welcomed Cairo’s plan to launch an investigation.
“We urge the Egyptian authorities to hold accountable whoever is responsible,” State Department spokesman Philip Crowley told reporters.
According to several reports, Khaled Saeid was sitting in an Internet cafe on June 6 when two plainclothes policemen tried to search him. When he refused, he was dragged out and beaten to death on a busy Alexandria street in plain sight of passersby.
According to the authorities, Saeid died after swallowing a bag of narcotics at the moment he was approached by police.
But rights groups and witnesses reject the official account, saying the incident is proof that Egypt’s decades-old emergency law, which was recently renewed for a further two years, has created a legacy of police impunity.
