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Verdict in police brutality case in Egypt may be exception

Police brutality in Egypt is not expected to disappear despite the March 3 verdict over the death of Khaled Said in June 2010.
Egyptian policeman Awad Suleiman reacts in the dock during his trial in court in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria, 220 km (137 miles) northwest of Cairo, March 3, 2014. Two Egyptian policemen were sentenced to 10 years in prison on Monday for torturing an activist to death in 2010 in an incident that became one of the triggers for the uprising that toppled veteran autocrat Hosni Mubarak. Witnesses and rights groups said that 28-year-old Khaled Said died after police dragged him out of an Internet cafe i

ALEXANDRIA, Egypt — Inside the Alexandria courtroom on March 3, Mahmoud Salah Mahmoud, one of the police officers charged with the death of Khaled Said, 28, reeled back when the judge announced he would be serving a 10-year prison sentence alongside co-defendant Awad Soliman. A guard inside the dock rubbed Mahmoud's back. It was a gesture of pitiful consolation surrounded by an iron cage, a wall of geared-up Central Security Forces troops.

Arguments had already broken out between police and members of the defendants' families. "Where are the police generals?" Mahmoud's brother screamed after the verdict was announced. "Why do they not protect their officers?"

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