By Mark Baber
March 18 – Egypt’s Prosecutor General Hisham Barakat has indicted 16 defendants for the Zamalek massacre in which 20 fans died after a crowd outside the stadium was fired upon by police before the game between Zamalek and Enppi on February 8.
Barakat claimed in a statement that “the prosecution’s investigation proved that the terrorist Muslim Brotherhood, as part of its endeavour to bring down the pillars of stability of the country, used its relationship with cadres of the Zamalek club’s fan group, the White Knights” to instigate the Cairo incident.
According to Barakat the “riot” was aimed at undermining the government in its attempts to raise billions of dollars in foreign aid and investment at a conference attended in Sharm el Sheikh last weekend by British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond and a range of investors including, BP, Vodafone, Barclays and BG Group.
Barakat claimed that “some of the suspects who belong to the Muslim Brotherhood have confessed to planning, funding and participating in these crimes to create a state of security destabilisation and ruin the economic summit.”
Those arrested and charged with crimes including murder, vandalism, resisting the authorities and possession of “explosive materials” are understood to be Zamalek supporters, whilst no action is apparently contemplated against police who fired into the crowd of supporters outside the stadium, causing the stampede and deaths.
In the aftermath of the Zamalek deaths, solicitors for 26 fans arrested claimed all their clients, including one minor, had been tortured in the Abu Nomros police station, with electrocution and beatings with weapons, into stating they were paid to riot by the Muslim Brotherhood.
Barakat, Egypt’s top prosecutor, led the investigation into the Port Said Massacre, in which dozens of Ahly Club fans died, in a case which resulted in death sentences for a number of Port Said fans but no action against security services.
Barakat has also been instrumental in the detention of journalists including Abdullah Alfakharany, co-founder of the critical news website Rassd, Samhi Mustafa, Rassd’s executive director, and Mohamed al-Adly, presenter of the religious satellite channel Amgad TV whom he has accused of “spreading chaos” and “spreading false information” and of Muslim Brotherhood members who he has accused of “forming an operations room to direct the Muslim Brotherhood terrorist group to defy the government during the Rabaa sit-in dispersal, and to spread chaos in the country.”
The prosecution of members of Zamalek fans and the attempt to link them to the banned Muslim Brotherhood, may presage a new attempt to ban the Zamalek White Knights ultra group, which has been a locus of anti-government activity, with the anti-foreign investment conspiracy theory a useful distraction from the police incompetence and negligence which led to the fan’s deaths.
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