CAIRO: Investigations confirmed that Ahmed Abdel Karim, the police officer who was killed on duty in Al-Badrashin, was hit by a bullet fired by a fellow police officer and not by the two criminals he was chasing as earlier reported.
The officer who fired the shot was sentenced to eight years in prison after being charged with second degree murder.
He was with Abdel Karim as they chased two men who kidnapped a girl and were trying to rape her.
News of his death reverberated nationwide and Abdel Karim was regarded as a martyr. He was given an official funeral that was attended by scores of governmental officials.
Hafez Abu Saeda, director of the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights (EOHR), confirmed the news to Daily News Egypt.
Abu Saeda said that ballistics reports identified the bullet which killed Abdel Karim as the same kind used by the police, which is the reason why the investigation was reopened.
The news was also reported on Dream TV’s Al Ashera Masa’an last Monday.
Some reports indicated that the Ministry of Interior tried to quell news of the developments in the case out of fear that it may belittle the victim’s martyr status since he was killed by a fellow police officer and not the criminals.
The first reports, according to Abu Saeda, said that Abdel Karim was killed by the man he was chasing.
To date, the police have only caught one of the two criminals they were chasing on the day of the accident.
