By Nicholas Piachaud, North Africa Team
I can still remember the shock when I first saw the pictures. The young man’s face was barely recognizable from his beating at the hands of the security forces, and from an autopsy that, we would later learn from forensic experts, had been rushed and botched.
I cannot imagine what Khaled Mohammed Said’s family must have felt when they saw the body.
I know that, today, one year after his death, they are still waiting for justice.
On June 6, 2010, Khaled Said, 28, was beaten by two plain-clothes police officers in an internet café in Egypt’s second city, Alexandria. He was then dragged out into the street where, eyewitnesses say, the beating continued until he died.
Pictures of his body, taken by his family in a morgue, caused public outrage that paved the way for the January 2011 uprising.