( AP ) - Two police officers were convicted Monday of torturing a bus driver in an abuse case that came to light when a cell phone video of the man being beaten and sodomized appeared on Egyptian blogs and YouTube.
They were sentenced to three years in prison.
The bus driver, 22-year-old Emad el-Kabir, shouted in joy upon hearing the verdict against his assailants - Islam Nabih, a police captain, and Reda Fathi, a noncommissioned officer.
"God is great! Thank God!" el-Kabir said. "I regained my right. I don't want anything more than that."
Earlier in the trial, el-Kabir tearfully told the judge the two officers sexually abused him and used a cell phone to film the abuse. He said they sodomized him with a stick and hit him with shoes, a whip and a gun.
The two police officers stood behind bars in the defendants' cage while their verdict was read and were quickly whisked outside the courtroom afterward. Court officials said both men would appeal.
In November 2006, several Egyptian bloggers posted a video showing a man naked from the waist down being sodomized with a stick. As he screamed in pain, those around him, whose faces were not visible, ridiculed him and threatened him that they were going to spread the video among his fellow drivers to humiliate him.
The man was later identified as el-Kabir, who said the abuse took place in January 2006 at a Cairo police station.
Police have said el-Kabir was detained and beaten for attempting to stop an argument between his cousin and police. At the time, he was released without charges but later jailed for three months for resisting arrest.
El-Kabir filed a complaint with the prosecutor general, and in late December, the two police officers were arrested. Their trial started March 3.
During Monday's court session, Judge Samir Aboul Maati said the defendants crime brought them a "mark of shame," but he appealed to Egyptians not to lose faith in the entire police force.
Other videos of alleged police torture in Egypt have since appeared on blogs, and human rights groups and activists believe the verdict in el-Kabir's case could set a precedent.
"This historic verdict will open the torture file in Egypt and will encourage ordinary Egyptian citizens to resort to the judiciary, which will get them their rights no matter how simple the victims might be," said Nasser Amin, el-Kabir's lawyer, who had appealed to him to come forward after bloggers posted his video.
Rights groups say torture, including sexual abuse, is routinely used in police stations and in the interrogation of prisoners, but the government denies it is systematic. In recent years, the Ministry of Interior, which supervises jails and prisons, has investigated many allegations of torture.
Some officers have been indicted, convicted and sentenced, but the punishments have not been harsh even when victims died. Many officers also have been pardoned before the end of their sentences.