Egypt's Court of Cassation upheld on Wednesday a seven-year prison sentence for a police officer convicted of torturing a man to death in a police station in Luxor governorate.

The court also confirmed three-year jail verdicts for four police informants convicted in the same case, which related to the beating death of papyrus vendor Talaat Shabeeb following his arrest in November 2015.

The court also ordered the minister of interior to pay EGP 1.5 million compensation to Shabeeb's family.

The four men were originally convicted in July 2016.

Shabeeb, 47, had been arrested and held at the governorate's El-Awameya Police Station on charges of drug possession.

His family was later informed that he had died and his body was brought to a local hospital.

Shabeeb's family denied the directorate's claim that he had possessed drugs, saying that he was arrested because of personal feuds with police officers.