CAIRO — An Egyptian court acquitted six police officers Saturday on charges of killing 83 protesters during the country’s 2011 uprising, something rights activists say could allow toppled autocrat Hosni Mubarak to walk free on similar charges.
It’s the last case in a string of acquittals for nearly 100 officers charged in the killings of more than 840 demonstrators during the 18-day revolt. That’s as Mubarak’s successor, ousted Islamist President Mohammed Morsi, finds himself entangled in multiple cases that carry the death penalty.
“The sequence of events show that Mubarak will most probably get acquitted,” said human rights lawyer Mohsen el-Bahnasi, who also represents the families of 83 protesters killed in Alexandria.
Mubarak and his top security official Habib el-Adly were sentenced to life imprisonment in June 2012 before a court overturned the verdict on appeal. They also face a retrial with others for failing to stop the killings of protesters.
Rights groups say the military-backed interim government is trying to scrub the image of the country’s police, notorious for the torture and abuse that sparked the 2011 uprising. That’s as pro-government media depict anti-Mubarak revolutionaries as foreign agents who orchestrated chaos.
Meanwhile, security forces routinely use a new protest law to target Morsi supporters and others protesting against the interim government. A Cairo court on Saturday sentenced 15 youth protesters to two years in prison and fines of 50,000 Egyptian pounds, nearly $7,100, for protesting without a permit in January.
