10 Egyptian cops cleared of protesters’ killings

CAIRO: An Egyptian court has acquitted 10 policemen and four civilians of the killings of several protesters during the 2011 uprising against former President Hosni Mubarak.
Nearly 200 policemen and Mubarak-era officials have been charged with the killing of 900 protesters in various trials since his ouster. Most of the suspects have been acquitted.
Lawyers and rights activists say the prosecutors’ cases are weak and laws have no adequate provisions to try officials for such crimes.
Egypt’s state news agency MENA says the court on Thursday found the policemen, a businessman and his three sons not guilty of killing 17 protesters in January 2011 in Suez — a city at the southern tip of the Suez Canal that saw some of the first protester deaths in dramatic confrontations with police.
Egypt’s interim president on Thursday extended a nationwide state of emergency by two months, citing security conditions.
The nearly month-old state of emergency, which gives security forces greater powers of arrest, had been due to expire within days. It was first declared in mid-August after authorities cleared two protest encampments, unleashing violence that claimed the lives of nearly 1,000 in subsequent days.
The extension had been widely expected, and the decree cited continued security concerns.
In an interview with the daily Al-Masry Al-Youm Wednesday, interim Prime Minister Hazem El-Beblawi said the government was recommending the state of emergency be extended for a month or two because of “an increasingly tense situation.” He called it an “exceptional” measure that should be used minimally.