CAIRO // Egypt’s state prosecutor referred a police officer to trial on Tuesday for allegedly shooting to death a leftist female protester during a peaceful rally in central Cairo.
The death of Shaimaa El Sabbagh, which was partly captured by a photographer, prompted president Abdel Fattah El Sisi to publicly demand that the perpetrator be brought to justice.
El Sabbagh was shot dead as police dispersed a small march of left-wing demonstrators on the eve of the fourth anniversary of the January 25 uprising.
The marchers had been carrying a wreath to a monument commemorating the deaths of protesters during the revolt that toppled president Hosni Mubarak.
The police officer, who was not named by the prosecution, will stand trial before a criminal court. The charges against him do not include murder or manslaughter, but instead “battery that led to death” and “deliberately” wounding other protesters.
It is the first time a policeman has been referred to trial for allegedly killing someone during a protest since the military’s overthrow of president Mohamed Morsi in 2013.
However, police have been accused of killing hundreds of protesters since Mr Morsi’s ouster, mostly the former president’s supporters.
The prosecutor said an investigation had found that the officer shot dead El Sabbagh with birdshot, which police often use in crowd control.
Police had denied involvement in El Sabbagh’s death, suggesting that the birdshot which perforated her chest was not police-issued.
The prosecutor also referred protesters who had participated in the march to trial for violating a law that bans all but police-sanctioned demonstrations.
* Agence France-Presse
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Five famous companies founded by teens
There are numerous success stories of teen businesses that were created in college dorm rooms and other modest circumstances. Below are some of the most recognisable names in the industry:
- Facebook: Mark Zuckerberg and his friends started Facebook when he was a 19-year-old Harvard undergraduate.
- Dell: When Michael Dell was an undergraduate student at Texas University in 1984, he started upgrading computers for profit. He starting working full-time on his business when he was 19. Eventually, his company became the Dell Computer Corporation and then Dell Inc.
- Subway: Fred DeLuca opened the first Subway restaurant when he was 17. In 1965, Mr DeLuca needed extra money for college, so he decided to open his own business. Peter Buck, a family friend, lent him $1,000 and together, they opened Pete’s Super Submarines. A few years later, the company was rebranded and called Subway.
- Mashable: In 2005, Pete Cashmore created Mashable in Scotland when he was a teenager. The site was then a technology blog. Over the next few decades, Mr Cashmore has turned Mashable into a global media company.
- Oculus VR: Palmer Luckey founded Oculus VR in June 2012, when he was 19. In August that year, Oculus launched its Kickstarter campaign and raised more than $1 million in three days. Facebook bought Oculus for $2 billion two years later.
