The Appeals Court acquitted on Saturday the Al-Zawya Al-Hamra police officer accused of killing protesters during the 25 January Revolution.
The court refused the appeal presented by the General Prosecution challenging the acquittal of Mohamed Ibrahim Abdel Moneim, commonly known as Mohamed El-Sunni.
El-Sunni was a police officer in the Al-Zawya Al-Hamra neighbourhood during the 25 January Revolution.
Saturday’s verdict is final and cannot be appealed.
Among the evidence used in El-Sunni’s defence were videos showing the police station being burned and looted.
After 2011, El-Sunni was sentenced to life in absentia. He then turned himself in and the sentence was mitigated to five years imprisonment in a maximum security prison.
He later appealed the sentence and a retrial was ordered, from which he was acquitted in February 2014 from charges of participating in the killing of 18 protesters and injuring three others on 28 January 2011, during the 18-day uprising against former president Mubarak.
His lawyer has stated that he was near the entrance of the police station when his colleague, Abdullah Mohamed, was killed by protesters. “Thugs were attempting to enter the station to steal weapons, and thus the defendant was defending himself and the police station,” his lawyer said.
He added that El-Sunni had fired shots into the air to disperse the protesters, and did not shoot at them intentionally.
Riot police waged a fierce crackdown on protesters during the 25 January Revolution, leaving over a thousand dead and many thousands missing.
The killings took place on 28 January 2011, the deadliest day of the uprising. On that same day, thousands of convicts escaped from prisons across the nation, and scores of police stations were ransacked. The attackers made off with firearms and ammunition.
