Death of Khaled Mohamed Saeed

"Egypt cafe owner describes police beating death", —The San Diego Union-Tribune

On January 27, 2011, Ghonim was arrested for 12 days. Egypt also blocked nearly all access to the internet throughout the country. Ghonim wanted to remain anonymous but could not avoid Egyptian security forces. It later became apparent that Ghonim recruited an Egyptian political activist named AbdulRahman Mansour to become his co-admin. Both administrators received the credit for the creation of the site. Under the anonymous name el shaheed ("the martyr"), they were able to post and moderate the Arabic Facebook page. The involvement of Mansour in the creation of this page caused great controversy because he was a member of the January 25 coalition as well as the author of an article on the Muslim Brotherhood's English website titled "Mastermind Behind Egypt Uprising." In a 2011 interview, Ghonim blamed the regime for the people's anger, saying that blocking access to Facebook made them even angrier and led them to protests in the streets.

While the actual impact of Ghonim's site cannot be determined, it was Ghonim who first published a call to protest on 25 January, to the followers of his blog, and protesters carried banners and posters displaying the photograph of Saaed's corpse. This has been named one of the catalysts of the 2011 Egyptian protests, as an instance in which people formed a community around opposition to police brutality and, by extension, other government abuses. On 11 February 2011, these protests resulted in the resignation of Hosni Mubarak after 30 years in power. ABC News characterized Saaed in his morgue photo as "The Face That Launched a Revolution". The Washington Post wrote that "Had it not been for a leaked morgue photo of his mangled corpse, tenacious relatives and the power of Facebook, the death of Khaled Said would have become a footnote in the annals of Egyptian police brutality. Instead, outrage over the beating death of the 28-year-old man in this coastal city last summer, and attempts by local authorities to cover it up, helped spark the mass protests demanding the ouster of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak."

On 24 September 2011, Alexandria's criminal court adjourned the trial until 22 October 2011 as Judge Moussa al-Nahrawy decided to postpone the case to allow both the plaintiff's and the defendants' lawyers to review the report of a third forensic committee, whose formation the court had ordered in June 2011.

On 26 October 2011, both defendants were found guilty of manslaughter and were sentenced to seven years. Human rights activists, such as the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights, objected to the short sentences. The two officers were convicted of using excessive force which killed Saeed but were not convicted of the more serious charge of "torture with the purpose of killing" which is a capital crime. Organizations such as the April 6 Youth Movement and the 25 Revolution Youth Union also criticized the verdict for its leniency. The prosecution and defence both appealed the sentence and a retrial was ordered. On 3 March 2014, Alexandria criminal court increased the punishment by three years sentencing the two police officers to ten years in prison.

On 6 June 2010, Saeed had been sitting on the second floor of a cybercafe. Two detectives from the Sidi Gaber police station entered the premises and arrested him.

When Saaed's family visited his body in the morgue, his brother snapped pictures of the corpse using his mobile phone. The photo of Saeed's corpse was released onto the internet by Saeed's family in June 2010, causing a large outcry. Human Rights Watch released a press report about the photo that stated, "Photos of Said's battered and deformed face published on the internet show a fractured skull, dislocated jaw, broken nose, and numerous other signs of trauma" and that the image clearly showed "strong evidence that plainclothes security officers beat him in a vicious and public manner".

On 25 June 2010, Mohamed ElBaradei, former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, led a rally in Alexandria against alleged abuses by the police and visited Saeed's family to offer condolences. Protests over Saeed's death also occurred in Cairo's Tahrir Square and in front of the Egyptian Embassy in London. Thirty of the protesters in Tahrir Square were arrested by Central Security officers after the "security personnel vigorously beat back the crowds to keep them from reaching the ministry building."

The investigation into Saeed's death yielded 300 papers, analysis and testimony which informed the decision to charge both police officers, Mahmoud Salah Mahmoud and Awad Ismael Suleiman, in criminal court with use of violence and unjustified detention of the victim. They were detained in July 2010, and the trial began in July but was postponed and did not resume until February 2011 when it was postponed again.

Khaled Mohamed Saeed (Arabic: خالد محمد سعيد ‎ IPA: [ˈxæːled mæˈħæmmæd sæˈʕiːd] ; 27 January 1982 – 6 June 2010) was an Egyptian man whose death in police custody in the Sidi Gaber area of Alexandria on 6 June 2010 helped incite the Egyptian Revolution of 2011. Photos of his disfigured corpse spread throughout online communities and incited outrage over allegations that he was beaten to death by Egyptian security forces. A prominent Facebook group, "We are all Khaled Said", moderated by Wael Ghonim, brought attention to his death and contributed to growing discontent in the weeks leading up to the Egyptian Revolution of 2011. In October 2011, two Egyptian police officers were found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to seven years in prison for beating Saeed to death. They were granted a retrial and sentenced to ten years in prison on 3 March 2014.