CAIRO: Egypt on Thursday ordered nine policemen to stand trial for the beating to death of a man in custody, prosecutors said, after authorities vowed a crackdown on police abuses.

The nine, including three lieutenants and a captain, were arrested last week as part of a probe into the death of the 47-year-old at a police station in the southern city of Luxor in November.

Their arrests came amid at least two investigations into deaths in police custody, and after President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi last week warned that police officers found guilty of “committing mistakes” would be punished.

“The prosecutor general ordered the nine policemen to face a criminal trial,” an official at Luxor prosecutor’s office told AFP. He said the start date had yet to be fixed.

The policemen are accused of either participating in the beating, approving it or not preventing it, a judicial official said.

If found guilty, they face a prison term of up to 15 years.

The man had been arrested on Nov. 26 at a cafe in Luxor and taken to the police station where he died an hour later.

A forensic report revealed that he had been beaten on his neck and back, the official MENA news agency reported last week. Another police officer has been detained in a separate case of a veterinarian who died in police custody last month in the Suez Canal city of Ismailiya.