Interior Minister Magdy Abdel Gaffer referred on Thursday a low-ranking police officer to the general prosecution for allegedly shooting a civilian.
The officer was also suspended from his job pending investigation.
Police officer Ahmed Nassar injured a microbus driver after firing a shot at his leg following an altercation over the traffic.
In an official statement, the ministry said a group of drivers interfered in the dispute and then assaulted and injured the police officer, which led to the officer pulling out his weapon against the microbus driver.
This latest incident follows a string of assaults by police officers against civilians that started since the beginning of 2016. The Ministry of Interior has repeatedly denied accusations of systematic and widespread abuses of state power, labeling recent assaults by police officers as “individual mistakes”.
In early April, a tea vendor on the outskirts of Cairo was shot dead by a low-ranking police officer.
Prosecution investigations revealed that a dispute had erupted between the low-ranking officer and the tea vendor over the price of a cup of tea, prompting the officer to pull out his gun and open fire against the vendor, who died of his wounds.
The officer also reportedly injured two other civilians on a minibus who were passing by the scene of the crime.
In mid-February, tuk-tuk driver Mohamed Ismail was shot dead allegedly by a plainclothes police officer in the district of Darb Al-Ahmar in Cairo.
The shooting followed an argument between the two men over the payment of the ride, the Ministry of Interior said in a statement.
