Policeman sentenced to 15 yrs in prison over killing citizen

CAIRO - 30 March 2017: A Cairo policeman has been sentenced to 15 years in prison for killing a citizen, the North Cairo Criminal Court said Thursday.

50-year-old Khaled H. was found guilty of fatally shooting his neighbor, Mohamed Z., during a quarrel in Cairo’s Ain Shams district. Khaled’s 16-year-old son, who got involved in the quarrel, was acquitted of charges of possessing unlicensed weapons,

Youm7 reported

, citing the investigations.

Many Egyptian policemen have been handed prison terms for criminal charges. In November 2016, the Cairo Criminal Court sentenced a low-ranking police officer to life in prison for killing a street vendor after a brawl over paying for his cup of tea. Another low-ranking police officer was sentenced to 25 years in prison for killing a driver in Cairo’s district of Al-Darb Al-Ahmar in April 2016.

Also in 2016, some police personnel received prison sentences for killing detainees after attacking and torturing them.

Egyptian President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, however, has called for not blaming the institution for the behavior of a few of its members. “Some individuals’ wrong practices should not be generalized concerning the police system as a whole,” he said during a visit to the Police Academy on Dec. 3, 2015.

Egypt’s Police Law was amended in August 2016 to state that policemen and officers should not keep their guns on their person after their shifts end and should leave them in their police stations or directorates,

Youm7 reported

. The law also allowed police personnel to keeping their firearms on them when necessary.