University Police Referred To Criminal Court For Student Assault

On Saturday, February 14, Damanhur prosecution referred Ahmed Eissa Taha (Buheira University Guards Police Secretary) to the criminal court on charges of harshness and causing permanent distortions on the body of Mohammed Abdul-Maqsud, a student in the faculty of Commerce in Damanhur.

The incident first took place on Wednesday morning March 21, 2007 when university guards assaulted the MB student amid security clashes with students to prevent a memorial celebration for Sheikh Ahmad Yassin.

The students confirmed, “After the assault on Mohammed, particularly his eye which underwent an operation last year, and this is known to everyone including the security, he was rushed to the public hospital in Damanhour where he was given first aid and advised “to move to another hospital due to the seriousness of his conditions which could possibly result in his losing that eye.”” So the student, with his bleeding eye, accompanied by another student, went to another hospital in Tanta.

Abdul-Maqsud underwent a fine surgery at the hospital in Tanta where medical sources affirmed that the success rate of the operation was very low and did not actually determine it except after three months following the operation when a medical report was issued by the hospital reading, “An explosion in the right eyeball, protrusion of the ciliary body through the injury in the cornea, and loss of the crystalline lens and anterior chamber.”

As Abdul-Maqsud headed to file a complaint against Police Ahmed Eissa and others he found that university guards had assigned a few faculty supervisors to file a report against him in addition to three other MB students on charges of assaulting the guards upon which he was arrested and referred to Damanhur prosecution for investigations.

Reservations were held on the injured student as he was presented before prosecution on charges of assaulting university guards without viewing his health conditions in addition to his complete innocence from this accusation by the testimonies of the eye-witnesses, so the prosecution released him.

On the other hand, investigations into the complaint filed by the student continued as he was exposed to a legal physician who confirmed that the beating had negatively influenced the functioning of his eye by 15%, that the wound was on the same date of the incident, and that it was caused by the beating of a hand rather than from the shoving of students as mentioned in the memo of the university guards.

On this basis, the prosecution ordered the arrest of Ahmed Eissa, who the university guards and administration denied existence among the guard forces, and his presentation before the witnesses to familiarize him.  After this took place, the prosecution ordered his release on bail of 1000 LE.  The case was then presented to Buhaiyra Prosecutions Attorney General who decided that the accused Ahmed Mohamed Eissa Taha be referred to the criminal court.