Witness: Signs of old era as Egypt turns page with Mubarak trial

2011-08-04T06:18:00.000-07:00

Witness: Signs of old era as Egypt turns page with Mubarak trial

By Reuters

CAIRO (Reuters) - Like many Egyptians, the closest I had ever got to the country's fallen president was when I waited in frustration in gridlocked traffic as his motorcade raced through the streets of Cairo.

Wednesday, I got a bit closer to the only Egyptian president I have ever known. Hosni Mubarak lay on a hospital bed just meters away, behind bars and in the dock for conspiring to kill protesters during the uprising which ended his 30 years of power in February.Oddly, this real-life drama opened on a series of television screens propped on the courtroom walls.Before Mubarak and his sons arrived for their trial, people crammed into the courtroom at a Cairo police academy chatted excitedly, some pointing to television cameras broadcasting the session."Did the camera catch me? I think that was me on TV. I want history to show I was here," one policeman told a colleague after spotting himself on the TV screens. "I never thought I would live to see a day like this. No other day can top this."Then a helicopter appeared on the screens, flying into the barracks compound as it brought Mubarak on the last stage of his journey from a hospital bed to the courtroom cage.At last our attention turned from the screens to the cage, where defendants in Egyptian criminal trials usually stand. Inside, a metal door opened to let the defendants in.Mubarak's son Gamal, who many thought was being groomed for top office, looked into the courtroom, glancing at his watch, arms folded and waiting for a request to step inside.Far from being bowed, Gamal looked more like he was on the way to another meeting of his father's now disbanded political party. "That's Gamal! He is still acting like he is going into a National Democratic Party conference," an onlooker said. Gamal'sbrother Alaa followed, avoiding eye contact with the crowd.But the shock of seeing Mubarak's two sons in the dock lasted only the few moments until their father entered on the hospital trolley. The courtroom gasped. "That's the president! There he is!" someone said.Mubarak, who dyed his hair as he aged in office, still had jet black hair but seemed more frail than in his last appearance before he left Cairo and the presidency behind for the resort of Sharm-el-Sheikh.STEALING GLANCESEven the policemen, who were supposed to be watching people in the courtroom, stole glances at Mubarak."I'm dizzy. I can't believe my eyes," said Khaled, an electrician overseeing the court's sound system.Mubarak was separated from the crowd not just by the cage bars. His sons, who appeared holding the Koran, seemed to be trying to hide their father from the cameras. Dozens of policemen also blocked the view.The first day of Mubarak's trial may have opened a new chapter in Egypt's transition from decades of dictatorship. Yet, it was a trial that kept much of the "old Egypt" in tact.Although the head of the old Egypt was on trial, overwhelming security inside and outside the courtroom showed that the methods of the police state that kept Mubarak in power for three decades are little changed.Some lawyers representing victims of the uprising that toppled Mubarak and relatives were denied entry due to a lack of space. Yet I watched hundreds of plain-clothes police fill much of the courthouse.Only four family members of the victims or 414 plaintiffs involved in the case made it into the courtroom.With more than 100 lawyers in the room -- representing Mubarak, his two sons, the former interior minister and six senior former officers, as well as the plaintiffs -- the patience of the judge seemed to run thin."What else do you want? Are those your demands? Quickly please," judge Ahmed Refaat said as lawyer after lawyer took to the stand to make requests during the four-hour session.Finally Refaat set the date for the next session, ended the hearing and Mubarak was wheeled out.But I was left wondering how long this complex trial would last, just as before I would wonder how long I had to wait for the presidential motorcade to pass.(Editing by David Stamp)

Hosni mubarak

2011-08-04T06:14:00.000-07:00

Egypt press gasps at images of fallen 'Pharaoh'

CAIRO (AFP) - Egypt's press on Thursday captured the nation's incredulity at seeing Hosni Mubarak on trial for murder, hailing the fall of the "Pharaoh" as a triumph for the revolution that ended his 30-year rule.

Pictures of Mubarak lying on a stretcher and dressed in a white prison suit blanketed the front pages of newspapers, six months after the mere mention of his health could have landed an editor in jail.It was an epic downfall, with the once absolute ruler now a caged invalid, a scene unthinkable before the January 25 revolution."The Pharaoh is in the cage," said the independent daily Al-Masry al-Youm, while the state-owned Al-Ahram weekly gasped at "Mubarak's unthinkable end.""Mubarak in the cage, now the revolution has won," trumpeted the state-owned daily Al-Akhbar, long known for publishing fawning editorials and flattering images of Mubarak."Egypt's revolution has won," gloated the independent daily Al-Dustur, whose former editor Ibrahim Eissa was sentenced to six months in jail in 2008 for speculating on Mubarak's health. He was later pardoned.On Wednesday, Mubarak was flown to Cairo from the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh where he had been in custody in hospital being treated for a heart condition.He is accused of ordering the killing of protesters during the January-February uprising that toppled his regime.His lawyer Farid al-Deeb had claimed Mubarak suffers from cancer and went into a coma last month, which the hospital treating him denied.His sons Alaa and Gamal, former interior minister Habib al-Adly and six ex-security chiefs were being tried in the same case.Businessman Hussein Salem, a close associate of the Mubaraks, is being tried in absentia.For weeks, it seemed likely Mubarak would be tried in Sharm el-Sheikh, if at all, amid contradictory statements surrounding his health.The hearing -- with its dramatic images of an ailing Mubarak on a hospital bed -- was aired live on Egyptian television and gripped the nation, and Cairo's usually bustling streets were abnormally quiet during Wednesday's proceedings."Just one image of the ousted president, with his bed inside the dock, has changed everything," read the editorial in Al-Masry al-Youm."The revolutionaries were reassured about the fact that the process was real and not staged," it said.But others warned the powerful images should not placate the protest movement that has continued to push for reforms after Mubarak's resignation on February 11.There could be attempts to "silence the Egyptian people through these images, and this is a real danger," said Eissa, now the editor of the independent daily Al-Tahrir, named after the square that was the epicentre of protests that brought Mubarak down.Some however feel the country's ruling military council, headed by Mubarak's long-time defence minister Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, could not possibly turn on one of their own.A cartoon by political satirist Carlos Latuff depicts the trial as a staged affair.The drawing shows Mubarak on a hospital bed, with camera spotlights shining on him and his lawyer sitting on a director's chair."Good, now play victim!," says the lawyer in the cartoon.

hosni-mubarak

Witness: Signs of old era as Egypt turns page with Mubarak trial

Witness: Signs of old era as Egypt turns page with Mubarak trial

Hosni mubarak

Egypt press gasps at images of fallen 'Pharaoh'