Thugs-for-Hire Leave Mark on Protests, Egyptians Say
CAIRO—As popular anger against the Egyptian regime swelled last month, Saeed was locked up in a prison at a Cairo police station. The station’s chief approached him with a bargain: Saeed would attack and help disperse the protesters that were converging on Cairo’s Tahrir Square—and in return, Saeed recalled, the chief would erase the drug and illegal-arms-possession charges pending against him.