Innocent

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MOHAMED Ali, the alleged killer accused of the horrific Beni Mazar massacre in December, was yesterday found not guilty by the Minya Felonies Court. The victory dealt a blow to the Ministry of Interior which had maintained from the start of the investigation that Ali was behind the gruesome murder of 10 people, including women and infants.

The case took on political overtones when Menoufia PM Talaat El-Sadat adopted Ali's cause. Ali and his family have claimed that they were tortured by security personnel during questioning, making the ruling all the more embarrassing for the Ministry of Interior. Ali's father said he could hear his son scream from the pain of electric shocks he was subjected to while being interrogated.

El-Sadat and the rest of the defence team had difficulty leaving a court hearing on Sunday as dozens of the victim's families tried to physically attack them. El-Sadat was previously quoted as saying he thought the Ministry of Interior played a role in turning the families of the victims against him.

The court also listened to the testimony of the head of the forensics team who confirmed that the murders were committed by one individual using a single weapon. The defence contested his testimony by highlighting the fact that one of the victim's corneas was removed, in effect exhibiting a change in the murder technique. The defence team went on to highlight the fact that no fingerprints had been detected in any of the three murder scenes.

El-Sadat was also cynical about the male genitalia that had been dug up by Ali as he showed investigators where he hid the mutilated body parts of his victims. According to the defence team, the male genitalia unearthed by Ali was intact, implying that the organ was planted there and that Ali was simply following instructions given to him by security personnel.

In a court session on Tuesday, the legal team of the victims' families accused El-Sadat of using a forensics report written by an Ain Shams Hospital doctor in which the signatures of two additional specialists were allegedly forged. The legal team went on to attack Ali's background, mentioning a number of occasions when he trespassed on his neighbours homes at late-night hours.