Egypt court acquits police officers of lawyer's torture and murder

The two officers, a lieutenant colonel and captain with the national security service, had been accused of torturing and beating Karim Hamdi at a Cairo police station following a pro-Muslim Brotherhood rally. 

The officers were sentenced to five years in prison in December 2015, which they appealed. 

Hamdi died at a police station in the Cairo district of Matariya two days after his arrest. His death sparked outrage among his legal colleagues. 

The head of the lawyer's syndicate in northern Cairo, Mohammad Othman, said at the time that Hamdi was arrested for taking part in a protest of support of the banned Muslim Brotherhood.

Forensic authority spokesman Hisham Abdel Hamid said at the time that Hamdi had died after suffering "blows to several parts of his body with a blunt object".

An interior ministry spokesman, Hany Abdel Latif, said Hamdi had been involved in a terrorist cell and that he had been arrested in the company of an armed person.

Egyptian authorities labelled the Muslim Brotherhood a terror group after the military ousted Islamist president Mohammed Morsi in July 2013 following mass protests against him. 

The Tamarod movement that organised the protests, according to reports after the fact, were administered by Egypt's generals and funds were replenished by the United Arab Emirates.

Since Morsi's ouster, human rights groups have criticised the Sisi government's widespread human rights violations. Tens of thousands of Islamists along with secularists are currently being detained. 

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