Hard to believe but seems to be true: Mubarak has finally died.
I'd covered Mubarak extensively, and attended much of his the court hearings when he was on trial before his release in 2017 businessinsider.com/afp-hosni-muba…
What stays with me is his farcical trial for the killings of protesters during the uprising. The prosecution, under immense pressure, were forced to hastily gather evidence for an expedited trial months after his ouster. It was a farce through and through.
One after another, the prosecution witnesses crumbled. Their star witness, a police general in charge of communications, was brought to testify on what he heard over comms during the crackdown. It turned out that he himself had been sentenced to jail in a separate trial.
For... destroying all the evidence of police communications. Other prosecution witnesses said they were ordered to treat protesters "like family." At one point the prosecution demanded their own witness be charged with perjury.
After the following defence witness's testimony, although it corroborated the the previous witness. And when the judge examined his initial testimony to the prosecution, it emerged they simply hadn't paid attention before bringing to testify.
Another police general brought in to testify against one of Mubarak's co defendants, the head of riot police, was found to have had a personal grudge against him because the defendant, who once headed the police academy, expelled the witness's son for... dealing drugs.
It was all a very sordid and farcical affair. One lawyer announced in court he would be running for president on the platform of growing an exporting marijuana. Another "lawyer" demanded a DNA test on Mubarak because the real Mubarak died in 2005.
I write "lawyer" because it emerged, midway through the trial, that he was a random Egyptian guy who had somehow inveigled his way into the courtroom and acted as a lawyer.
My account from that time. middle-east-online.com/en/historic-mu…
Back then, people in the courtroom sniggered when the defendants, who included the chief of secret police, blamed Zionists, Masons, etc etc for the revolt
Back then, people in the courtroom sniggered when the defendants, who included the chief of secret police, blamed Zionists, Masons, etc etc for the revolt
Since then, the idea that the 2011 uprising was a bizarre and vast conspiracy has been wholeheartedly embraced, by many in the public and top echelons of the security services. The only lesson learned was: never give protesters any breathing space.
Mubarak is the second deposed Egyptian president to die over a year. Morsi was the first. Their funerals will no doubt be very different. Morsi was buried quickly and almost secretly. Mubarak, a former military officer, may get a military funeral.
That at least was the plan when I had last checked on it some years ago. But given suspicion some at the top have towards his supporters, which came out during the recent protests, that plan might have changed.
