A group of police officers severely beat a workshop owner in Cairo on Wednesday while he was being detained, and he was later pronounced dead at Al-Wayli police station in Abbasiya.
The family of Hussein Farghaly, the workshop owner, accused the police of torturing him to death.
A video circulated on social media showed a police force beating Farghaly and verbally assaulting and threatening his family who tried to prevent the police from detaining. The police officers allegedly did not show a warrant from the prosecution.
The police allegedly were seeking to detain the shop owner over a dispute with the landlord about renting the workshop.
Farghaly’s body was transferred to Dar Al-Shifaa hospital, where local reporters said the doctors noticed bruises and injuries to his body.
This comes after several reports in recent months that allege police officers have beaten and tortured citizens over minor incidents.
In February, an argument between a driver and a police officer in Cairo’s Al-Darb Al-Ahmar neighbourhood resulted in the police officer shooting the driver dead. While the police officer in that incident was sentenced to life in prison, another colleague of his is still pending trial over killing a tea vendor in Al-Rehab neighborhood after a quarrel erupted over the price of a drink.
