Photo: Flickr / Hossam el-Hamalawy 28-year old Khaled Said killed by Egyptian police On 6 June 2010, 28-year old Khaled Said was brutally killed at the hands of policemen in the city of Alexandria, Egypt. Egyptian police, however, denied any role in Said’s death, claiming that he died from an overdose of drugs he swallowed before police approached him. But eyewitnesses, Egyptian NGOs and photographs of Said’s face following his arrest tell a very different story. His face – both the youthful image of an average Egyptian man, and the picture of his brutalised face after his death – spread throughout the country and the globe as Egyptians said they would no longer take the abuse and torture of the Mubarak regime. The official autopsy report supported the claim that Said died from asphyxiation after swallowing 10 International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims a plastic bag with narcotics. So did a second autopsy report conducted, post exhumation, by three Egyptian forensic doctors forming part of a tripartite commission established as a result of national and international pressure. Upon request from El Nadim Center for Psychological Treatment and Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence and the lawyer of Said’s family, two members of the IFEG – Professors Jørgen Lange Thomsen and Duarte Nuno Vieira – provided an expert opinion on the quality of the two official reports. The reports were submitted at the first court session. The two experts stated that the “the first autopsy did not comply with minimum international standards for forensic autopsies and there were numerous significant deficiencies.” They further stated regarding the first report that, “the suppos-