TETA, Egypt — Three men accused of killing six Coptic worshipers and a security guard pleaded “not guilty” Feb. 13 as the Coptic community mourned the loss of yet another victim of apparent anti-Christian violence.
The three men allegedly sprayed a crowd with gunfire after a Christmas service in Nag Hammadi on Jan. 6.
On the evening of Feb. 9, Malak Saad, a 25-year-old Coptic carpenter living in Teta in Menoufia province, was walking outside a meeting hall that police had seized from Christians when he was shot through his chest at close range. He died instantly.
Officials at the Interior Ministry said Saad was killed by mistake when a bullet discharged while a police guard was cleaning his weapon. The Interior Ministry said the shooter has been detained and will be tried in a military court. One of Saad’s cousins disputed the Interior Ministry’s account of the incident, saying the guard had used the bathroom inside the meeting hall and had come outside the building when he exchanged a few words with Saad and shot him at close range.
The building in question had been Coptic-owned for 16 years, but two days prior to the shooting, police seized it after a group of Muslims started a rumor that the owners planned to convert the hall into a church building.
Following the Jan. 6 shootings, in a move that Christian leaders said was designed to silence the Coptic community’s protests, police went door to door and arrested Coptic men in their late teens and 20s. Reports vary widely on the numbers of how many men were arrested, but 15 arrests have been confirmed.
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