Mubarak denies all charges as historic trial begins in Cairo

In an unprecedented trial of a Middle East leader, Hosni Mubarak was wheeled into the steel defendants' cage of a makeshift courtroom Wednesday.

Accompanied by his sons, Gamal and Alaa, his former interior minister and six interior ministry aides, the 83-year old former president faces charges of conspiring to kill unarmed protesters during the popular uprising earlier this year. He also faces charges of corruption, benefiting from the sale of natural gas to Israel.

The conspiracy to murder charge carries a possible death penalty.

Looking wan, as he lay in a hospital bed inside the large steel cage, Mr. Mubarak was awake and alert. His two sons, stood at his bedside, between their father and the seven other defendants, as the court dealt with procedural matters largely related to ex-interior minister Habib Ibrahim al-Adly, a Mubarak appointee.

It was a touching family scene as the elderly Mr. Mubarak probably has not dealt with such a humiliation in all his three decades in power. Not just is he being tried for alleged crimes (in the police academy that bore his name until Tuesday) but he is made to wait, lying down, while lawyers shout and the head judge rules on relatively minor matters.

At 11:47 a.m. the names of Mohammed Hosni Mubarak and those of his two sons were read out and the charges given.

A prosecutor charged that Mr. Mubarak was an accomplice along with this then-interior minister in the "intentional and premeditated murder of peaceful protesters" and that he and his sons received gifts from a prominent businessman in return for guaranteeing him a lowered price in a land deal with the state.

"Yes, I am here," Mubarak said, raising his hand slightly when the judge asked him to identify himself and enter a plea. "I deny all these accusations completely," he said.

Mr. Mubarak's lawyer Farid al-Deeb asked to "hear the testimony of Field Marshal (Mohamed Hussein) Tantawi" among a list of more than 1600 people he requested as witnesses, including former and current governors in the region of South Sinai.

He also listed other requests, including asking for a permit to get a specialist doctor to tend to Mubarak who has been hospitalised in the Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh since April.

(Published by The Globe and Mail - August 3, 2011)