Egypt jails policeman for sexual assault on mentally ill girl

An Egyptian court on Sunday sentenced to life in jail a policeman for sexually assaulting a 16-year-old mentally handicapped girl at a Cairo police station, a judicial official said.

The incident occurred in August 2014 at the capital's Imbaba police station where the girl had been detained for reasons that have not been made clear.

The policeman was found guilty of taking the girl out of the cell where she was held to avoid being filmed on a CCTV installed inside the cell.

He "sexually assaulted" her at the station and later detained her again in the cell, the judicial official said.

The court sentenced him to life in prison, which in Egypt amounts to about 25 years.

In January, two policemen were referred to trial for kidnapping and sexually assaulting a woman in Cairo in their patrol car.

In April, a court sentenced a police colonel for three years and 13 policemen to one-year for torturing two prisoners to death in 2006.

Police abuses surged during the last five years of ex-president Hosni Mubarak's rule and were a key factor in the uprising that toppled him in early 2011.

But the force has managed to rehabilitate itself in the eyes of many Egyptians amid a deadly crackdown on supporters of Mubarak's successor, Islamist president Mohamed Morsi.

Morsi, Egypt's first freely elected leader, was ousted in July 2013 by then army chief and now President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi after mass protests against his one year rule.

On Tuesday, the Paris-based International Federation of Human Rights said that Egyptian security forces, including the police, have stepped up sexual attacks against detainees since Morsi's ouster.