Egyptian television broadcast picures of the former leader arriving by helicopter at the venue, a police academy, and then being driven by an ambulance to the makeshift courtroom. Earlier he was flown to Cairo by military plane from the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.
Before his arrival, hundreds of Mubarak supporters and opponents clashed outside the venue, throwing stones and bottles at each other, the Associated Press reported.
“It’s a decisive moment in the history of the Egyptian people to see this ousted president behind the prosecution cage after seeing him portrayed as a divine figure on television for decades,” said Mahmoud el-Khodairy, a former judge who is a critic of Mubarak.
Mubarak is accused of graft and of ordering the killing of nearly 900 demonstrators who took to the streets during an 18-day uprising that ended when the country’s powerful military chiefs forced him to step aside in February.
The proceedings against Mubarak will serve as an important test of a judicial system that was once subservient to him. And they will probably be a jarring sight for other Arab autocrats who have long felt invincible. With the exception of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein’s U.S.-engineered trial, no other Arab leader in modern history has been held to account in front of his people. Former Tunisian president Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, the first leader to be ousted in the Arab Spring, fled to Saudi Arabia but was tried and convicted twice in absentia.
Many Egyptians have grown weary of their country’s interim military leadership, led by Mohammed Hussein Tantawi, who was a defense minister under Mubarak, and have voiced doubt in recent months that the trial would go forward. But the military rulers, under growing public pressure to try Mubarak and other former officials, appear willing to proceed, and judicial and security officials have offered reassurances that the former president and decorated war hero will be tried.
Egypt’s health minister said last week that Mubarak was well enough to stand trial, despite assertions from the 83-year-old’s camp that he is in failing health. The interior minister said Sunday that officials were medically and logistically prepared to transfer Mubarak from the resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh, where he is hospitalized, to Cairo. On Tuesday, security authorities were told to move him to Cairo overnight, the television news channel al-Arabiya reported.
At the national police academy in a Cairo suburb, “Lecture Hall No. 1” is being fashioned into a courtroom. A cage for the defendants — a fixture in Egyptian criminal trials — has been built for the occasion. The cage, about 25 feet wide and with iron bars, sits at the front of the hall and will contain Mubarak, his two sons, former interior minister Habib al-Adli and several other defendants, all dressed in white. The judges will wear black robes.
Loading...
Comments