On Tuesday, Dec 10th, the Ninth Circuit of the Criminal Court of Appeal in Alexandria looked into an appeal submitted by three residents of the Sidi Barrani town in Marsa Matrouh Governorate, who were convicted in the "Sidi Barrani incident". The three had earlier received varying prison sentences in Case No. 279 of 2023 (Sidi Barrani), registered under No. 1095 of 2023 (Matrouh).

Back on August 12th, a court convicted the three citizens on charges of gathering, showing force, and "premeditated murder" of a police personnel who was hit by a car. The first defendant was sentenced to life imprisonment and remaining under police monitoring for an additional three years, while the second and third defendants were sentenced to five years in prison each and remaining under police monitoring for an additional three years. The court acquitted two other defendants and ordered confiscation of the car used in the incident.

During the Tuesday hearing, the court and the first defendant’s lawyer questioned a police officer who witnessed the incident. The court then adjourned the trial to Jan 12th to question the chief forensic doctor about the autopsy report on the non-commissioned officer killed in the incident.

The Public Prosecution had charged five residents of Sidi Barrani with participating in “an assembly of more than five people, which would endanger public peace, for the purpose of showing force, threatening violence and resisting the policemen guarding the Sidi Barrani police station, and in implementation of this purpose they committed several crimes, namely: showing force, threatening violence against the police officers and personnel present at the scene of the incident, and killing non-commissioned police officer Mohamed Sadiq Abdel Gawad at the hands of the first defendant”. The defendants faced other charges, which the Criminal Court later acquitted them of. These included the use of force and violence against public servants, theft of surveillance cameras, intentional damage to property, and endangerment of land transportation. The prosecution leveled these charges based on the hypothetical liability determined by Article 3 of the Assembly Law No. 10 of 1914, which punishes participants in an assembly for any crime that occurs during the gathering, even if they were not the perpetrators or participated in its commission.

The case dates back to July last year, when dozens of demonstrators gathered outside the Sidi Barrani police station in Matrouh Governorate, following the death of citizen Farahat Al-Mahfouzi from injuries he sustained after police officer Ali Lamei fired shots from his gun at him. The officer said later that he "lost balance" when the car driver (Mahfouzi) tried to run over him during a security campaign to arrest Mahfouzi, according to an initial statement issued by the Public Prosecution.

The conviction of the Sidi Barrani residents came after the Alexandria Criminal Court issued a verdict on 25 July acquitting the police officer accused of killing Mahfouzi in Case No. 278 of 2023 (Sidi Barrani Felonies, Matrouh). The court saw that the accused officer "used his legitimate right to self-defense" while he was at the scene. The case witnessed significant developments in May 2023, when the forensic doctor changed his statements before the court, contradicting what he wrote in the autopsy report. Thus, his new testimony led to the officer's acquittal despite the fact that his first report would have backed the officer’s conviction. The president of the Alexandria Criminal Court, Judge Shawky Al-Salehi, also decided to step down from the case due to embarrassment, following the change in the forensic doctor's testimony.