Soccer fans argue with security personnel as they attempt to enter a stadium, before a scuffle broke out, on the outskirts of Cairo February 8, 2015 (Photo: Reuters)
Ultras White Knights (UWK), hardcore supporters of Egypt’s Zamalek football club, vowed on Monday to take revenge for at least 19 fans who died in clashes with police on Sunday.
Zamalek fans were killed when police fired teargas to disperse crowds attempting to enter a stadium in Cairo after they were denied access.
Forensic Medicine authorities said the deceased were suffocated and crushed in a stampede.
"The truth is clear to the world and we know the criminals who incited the murder," UWK said in a statement on Facebook.
“We have passed through your courts many times, with no truth held up nor retribution for the wronged. The time has come for you to pass through our courts. What goes around comes around.”
The statement strongly condemned actions by the prosecutor-general who summoned some of the group's leaders for questioning, accusing them of instigating the clashes.
"The prosecutor-general has summoned the group's leaders as a punishment for the interior ministry's killing of our brothers," the group lamented in sarcasm.
The group expressed rejection of the judicial process, saying they place no value in it.
Many of the group's members have been tried since the 2011 revolution for clashes with police, usually due to football related issues.
Twenty members of the group were recently sentenced to three years in jail for inciting violence and assaulting security forces at a CAF match.
Over 70 Ahly fans were killed at a stadium in Port Said in 2012. Ahly fans blamed police for complicity in the killings.
President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi stressed in a statement the importance of completing the investigations to uncover the circumstances which led to the fatalities and to determine the culprits.
The interior ministry denied any wrongdoing, saying the fans tried to force their way into the stadium and its forces acted accordingly.
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