US Student Says He Was Beaten After Cairo Arrest

One of the three Americans who were arrested last week in the Cairo unrest says they were beaten by police and threatened with much worse while in custody, reports AP. Derrik Sweeney denies Egyptian allegations that the three of them ever threw Molotov cocktails from the roof of any building. "I don't know where the rooftop idea came from," he said. "The American University building on that street where we were arrested—there were a lot of people that had broken in there, it was swarmed with protesters—but we were not on there. We were on a street."

The threats and hitting all came on the first night, says Sweeney, who adds that he and the two other students ran from Tahrir Square as soon as the police started firing on the crowds that evening. They were caught by plainclothes policemen, who hit them in the face and back of the neck, and threatened to shoot them or force-feed them gasoline. "It was the most frightening experience of my life," he said. (More Egypt stories.)