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At Least 22 Die in Egyptian Riots after Soccer Verdict At Least 22 Die in Egyptian Riots after Soccer Verdict
(about 2 hours later)
CAIRO — An Egyptian court sentenced 21 people to death on Saturday on charges related to one of the world’s deadliest episodes of soccer violence, touching off an attempted jailbreak and a riot that killed at least 22 people in the Mediterranean port city that is home to most of the defendants. CAIRO — A judge sentenced 21 soccer fans to death on Saturday for their role in a deadly soccer riot, setting off an eruption of violence that engulfed the city of Port Said, killing at least 28 people and wounding at least 300.
The verdict follows deadly clashes between the police and demonstrators on Friday, the second anniversary of the uprising that overthrew Egypt’s longtime leader Hosni Mubarak. Such cycles of violence, often lasting for weeks and costing dozens of lives, have occurred regularly in the last two years. Angry families and supporters of the 21 defendants poured into the streets of Port Said as soon as the verdict was announced. They attacked the jail holding the defendants to demand their release, and the police responded with tear gas. But some of the attackers were armed with guns, witnesses and security officials said.
Avid soccer fans from both teams, known as Ultras, hold the police at least partly responsible for the Port Said deaths and have criticized President Mohamed Morsi for doing little to overhaul the force. President Mohamed Morsi held an emergency meeting with his national defense council. The army, which had sent troops and armored vehicles to the city of Suez before dawn to help quell rioting that killed nine people there on Friday, dispatched more forces to Port Said to help protect essential public facilities, including the city’s Mediterranean port, the Suez Canal and the jail.
Immediately after the verdict, two police officers were killed outside Port Said’s main prison when angry relatives tried to storm the facility to free the defendants. The police fired tear gas and rubber bullets, as well as live rounds, at the crowd outside the prison, killing six, security officials said. It was the third day of bloodshed in Egyptian streets. Clashes between protesters and the police continued Saturday in downtown Cairo and other cities around Friday’s two-year anniversary of the uprising against Hosni Mubarak, the deposed president.
Security officials said the military was being deployed to Port Said — the second such deployment in less than 24 hours. The army is often used to keep order by top generals who took over after Mr. Mubarak was ousted, but the military has kept a much lower profile since Mr. Morsi was elected as president in June. The military was also deployed overnight in the city of Suez after eight people died in clashes between security forces and protesters opposed to Mr. Morsi. But while those battles were set off by disappointment with the results of the revolution and hostility toward Egypt’s new Islamist leaders, the escalating chaos in Port Said around the soccer riot verdict posed a far greater challenge to those leaders, and especially to their promises to enforce the rule of law.
Judge Sobhi Abdel-Maguid read out the death sentences related to the Feb. 1 riot in Port Said that killed 74 fans of the Al-Ahly team, based in Cairo. Defendants’ lawyers said all those sentenced were fans of the Port Said team, Al-Masry. Executions in Egypt are usually carried out by hanging. Defense officials said soldiers did not have the legal authorization to quash the Port Said riot. And Interior Ministry officials said their security forces were unable to stop the violence and pleaded for civilian leaders to intervene.
The judge said in his statement, read live on state TV, that he would announce the verdict for the remaining 52 defendants on March 9. “The solution isn’t a security solution,” Gen. Osama Ismail, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry, said in a television interview. “We urge the political and patriotic leaders and forces to intervene to calm the situation.”
Among those on trial are nine security officials, but none were handed sentences Saturday, lawyers and security officials say. Several residents of Port Said said in telephone interviews that they were afraid to leave their homes because of the violence and gunfire in the streets. Alaa al-Bahaei, a doctor and former lawmaker, said in a television interview from the Port Said hospital that it was overwhelmed by casualties. He urged other doctors to rush to the scene.
Fans of al-Ahly, whose stands were attacked by the rival club Al-Masry in the Feb. 1 episode in Port Said, had promised more violence if the accused did not receive death sentences. In the days leading up to the verdict, Al-Ahly fans warned of bloodshed and retribution. Hundreds of Al-Ahly fans gathered outside the Cairo sports club in anticipation of the verdict, chanting against the police and the government. The case that set off the riot grew out of a deadly brawl last February between rival groups of hard-core fans of soccer teams from Cairo and Port Said at a match in that city, which has a population of about 600,000. The hard-core fans, called ultras, are known for their appetite for violence, against rival teams or the police. And some had smuggled knives and other weapons into the stadium, security officials said at the time.
Before the judge could read out the names of the 21, families erupted in screams of “Allahu akbar!” Arabic for God is great, with their hands in the air and waving pictures of the deceased. One man fainted while others hugged one another. The judge smacked the bench several times to try and contain reaction in the courtroom. Seventy-four were killed and over 1,000 injured. Many died after being trampled under the stampeding crowds or falling from stadium balconies, according to forensic testimony later reported in the state media.
The verdict is not expected to ease tensions between the two rival teams. The judge is expected to make public his reasons for the death sentences March 9, when the remaining 52 defendants receive their sentences. It was the worst soccer riot in Egyptian history and among the worst in the world. Many political figures, including members of the Muslim Brotherhood, initially sought to blame a conspiracy orchestrated by Mubarak loyalists or the Interior Ministry. But prosecutors ultimately charged 21 Port Said fans with attacking their Cairo rivals, and charged nine security officers with negligence. Six of the convicted fans remain fugitives.
A Port Said resident and lawyer of one defendant given a death sentence said the verdict was nothing more than “a political decision to calm the public.” The verdict was awaited with acute anxiety because any outcome risked the fury of the ultras from either Port Said or Cairo. The Cairo ultras staged several raucous protests in recent days, temporarily shutting down subway lines and threatening the Egyptian stock exchange, as warnings of their wrath in the event the Port Said fans were acquitted.
“There is nothing to say these people did anything, and we don’t understand what this verdict is based on,” the lawyer, Mohammed al-Daw, said. Because of the fear of violence between the two groups of ultras, the trial was held in Cairo instead of Port Said. For the same reason, the Interior Ministry declined to transfer the defendants to the Cairo courtroom to hear the verdict, leaving them in detention in their home city.
The violence began after the Port Said’s home team won the match, 3 to 1. Al-Masry fans stormed the pitch after the game ended, attacking Cairo’s Al-Ahly fans. “The decision was to not pour fuel on fire,” Gen. Mohsen Radi of the Interior Ministry explained in an interview published Saturday in the state newspaper, Al Ahram.
The authorities shut off the stadium lights, plunging it into darkness. In the exit corridor, the fleeing crowd pressed against a chained gate until it broke open. Many were crushed under the crowd of people trying to flee. Most of those killed in Port Said on Saturday died of bullet wounds, security officials said. It was unclear who shot first, but after two security officers were killed the gunfire escalated sharply, security officials said, and all of the other people killed were believed to be civilians.
Survivors described a nightmarish scene in the stadium. The police stood by doing nothing, they said, as fans of Al-Masry attacked supporters of the top Cairo club stabbing them and throwing them off bleachers. Rioters looted and burned a police barracks and set fire to a police station. They attacked members of the news media, damaging television cameras that sought to film the violence and ending their broadcasts. They closed off all roads into Port Said as well as the railroad station, and the Ministry of Electricity and Energy said rioters had attacked a power facility as well.
Al-Ahly survivors said supporters of Al-Masry carved the words “Port Said” into their bodies and undressed them while beating them with iron bars. “There is shooting and disturbance everywhere,” Omnia al-Zangeer, 23, a customs worker, said in a telephone interview from her home near the hospital. “There is so much shooting in the streets. The ambulances do not stop.”
While there has long been bad blood between the two rival teams, many blamed the police, saying they failed to perform the usual searches for weapons at the stadium. Many complained that while the soccer fans had been sentenced in a brawl that killed several dozen people, no police officer or security official had yet been held responsible for the killing of 800 civilian demonstrators during the 18 days of protests that toppled Mr. Mubarak two years ago. The only conviction, against Mr. Mubarak and his interior minister, was overturned this month.
Both Al-Ahly Ultras and Al-Masry Ultras widely believe that former members of the ousted government of Mr. Mubarak helped instigate the attack, and that the police at the very least were responsible for gross negligence. It is not clear what kind of evidence, if any, was presented to the court to back up claims that the attack had been orchestrated by government officials. “Where are the officers of the Ministry of Interior and the military council in this verdict?” Mahmoud Affifi, a spokesman for the left-leaning April 6 group, told Al Ahram. “Where are those who were responsible for running the gates? Justice won’t be obtained by only punishing and prosecuting civilians.”
As is customary in Egypt, the death sentences will be sent to the nation’s top religious authority, the Grand Mufti, for approval, though the court has final say on the matter. Adding to the sense of outrage, the judge hearing the case, Sobhi Abdel Megeed, had imposed a complete ban on publishing or broadcasting news from the last two months of the soccer riot trial, including details of the charges, evidence or judicial reasoning. The blackout left the public unable to make any sense of the convictions.
All of the defendants — who were not present in the courtroom Saturday for security reasons — have the right to appeal the verdict. Saying that the nine security officers remain to be sentenced, Judge Megeed on Saturday renewed the ban, noting that the court had asked the public prosecutor “to move criminal cases against anybody who would violate the publishing ban no matter what their position is.”
The episode was the world’s deadliest soccer violence in 15 years. Most in Cairo had expected an acquittal. Speculation had centered on the wrath of the capital’s ultras if their attackers walked free.
Instead, families of those killed in the soccer riot who were in the courtroom erupted in jubilation when hearing about the death penalty for the Port Said ultras. Relatives held pictures of the victims in the air. Some danced and chanted. A few fainted. And the Cairo ultras celebrated outside their team’s headquarters.
The convicted defendants may appeal the decision. And under longstanding Egyptian law the death sentence is not final until it is approved by the grand mufti, Egypt’s official Muslim religious authority. But that step is usually considered a formality after the decision of a civil judge.