Cairo court orders new investigation into killing of 22 Zamalek fans

Cairo criminal court ordered on Sunday a new investigation into the case of the killing of 22 Zamalek club fans last year, saying that the available evidence and the witness testimonies are too “inconclusive for the court to make a ruling.”

The new investigations, according to the court, should be finalised within six months, though the detainment of the defendants will continue throughout this period.

Sixteen people are being tried on charges of inciting violence that lead to the death of 22 people as a result of a stampede at the Air Defence Stadium in February 2015 prior to a football match.

Eyewitnesses said the stampede started when police used teargas to disperse the Zamalek club fans who were standing in a narrow barbed-wire corridor leading into the stadium.

In a statement issued following the incident, the prosecutor-general stated that both the Muslim Brotherhood and the Ultras White Knights, Zamalek’s hardcore fan group, instigated the disaster in order to blight the international economic conference that was later held in March in the Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh.

The Ultras White Knights maintain that the police, as well as the Zamalek chairman and parliamentarian Mortada Mansour, were responsible for the death of the fans.

source: Ahram Online