CAIRO - Egypt's highest appeals court ordered a re-trial on Thursday for four policemen in connection with the deaths of 37 people during political violence after President Mohamed Morsi's ouster, the judge said.
The case relates to one of the most controversial incidents after the army toppled Morsi in July 2013. A lower appeals court had overturned in June prison sentences, most of them suspended, against the policemen.In August 2013, 37 men the Interior Ministry described as Islamists died during what the ministry said was an attempted prison break. The prosecutor's office later said its investigations showed they died while being transported to jail in an overcrowded police van into which tear gas was fired.
The case against the policemen is the only instance where security forces have been brought to trial for the deaths of demonstrators since Morsi's ouster, despite the deaths of hundreds of his supporters in the summer of 2013 when security forces stormed two Cairo protest camps.
