The Cairo Cassation Court refused on Wednesday the appeal presented by the two police men charged with torturing Khaled Said to death, and upheld their ten-year imprisonment sentence against them.

The Alexandria Criminal Court had previously sentenced the defendants to ten years in prison, after their appeal against the court’s first verdict of seven years in prison for each defendant was refused.

Said was beaten to death in public by the officers  in Alexandria in June 2010. The autopsy report alleged that he swallowed a package of narcotics. The images of Said’s beaten corpse that were published caused widespread outrage in Egypt.

Said’s death was one of the precursors to the 25 January Revolution against the autocrat regime of ousted president Hosni Mubarak.