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CAIRO, July 7 (AFP) - A Cairo court delayed Sunday its verdict in the trial of four policemen accused of torturing a suspect to death because the presiding judge stepped down for health reasons, an Nampa-AFP correspondent said.

In a brief public session, magistrate Mustafa Abdallah announced he would replace Alaa Eddin al Geddawi who, he said, had "stepped down for health reasons."

"Conforming to judicial procedures in the case of changing the composition of a tribunal, the verdict is delayed and the judges will listen again to the defense case," Abdallah said, fixing the next session for August 8.

Four Egyptian policemen, including three officers, were referred Thursday by the public prosecutor to a Cairo felony court for allegedly torturing a suspect to death, an official report said.

The policemen allegedly subjected two burglary suspects to beatings, whippings, and electric shocks to extract confessions. One of the suspects died and another was badly injured.

Four others, including two police and two doctors, were referred to a Nasr City misdemeanors court for alleged complicity in the torture, which occurred at a police station in the northeast Cairo suburb, police sources said.

The two police are accused of having attempted to hide the victim's body, while the doctors are said to have treated the second victim to hide the traces of torture, the sources said.

On May 11, police announced the arrest of an officer and an assistant on charges of having killed a suspected car thief after torturing him at a police station in the west Cairo neighborhood of Imbaba.

On March 18, four policemen including a colonel were sentenced to prison for beating to death an inmate in an Egyptian prison.

Local and international human rights groups charge that torture is used systematically in Egypt against ordinary criminal suspects as well as political detainees. - Nampa-AFP

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