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Loading...Could Mubarak Get the Death Penalty?
The trial of ousted Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has resumed. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty, arguing that Mubarak ordered security forces to fire on protesters during the uprising a year ago. Interior Minister Habib el-Adly and six other former security chiefs also face the same charges.
Along with his sons, Alaa and Gamal, Mubarak has also been charged with abusing power to amass wealth.
As chief prosecutor Mustafa Suleiman told the court on the third and final day of the prosecutors’ opening statement, “‘[Mubarak] can never, as the head of the state, claim that he did not know what was going on…He is responsible and must bear the legal and political responsibility for what happened.’” On January 28, after the uprising had entered its third day and after security forces had disappeared from the streets for yet unexplained reasons, Mubarak called out the army, says the New York Times. Suleiman noted that Mubarak had told investigators that he decided to step down from power because the military had refused to act “immediately and urgently” to help the security forces against the protesters.
Mustafa Khater, another lawyer on the five-member prosecution team, said:
“Retribution is the solution. Any fair judge must issue a death sentence for these defendants. We feel the spirits of the martyrs flying over this hall of sacred justice, and those who lost their sight by the bullets of the defendants are stumbling around it to reach the judge and demand fair retribution from those who attacked them.
“The nation and the people are awaiting a word of justice and righteousness.”
Another prosecutor, Wael Hussein, said that one of the six police commanders on trial, former chief of the state security agency Hassan Abdel-Rahman, gave orders to release thousands of inmates from a number of jails across Egypt during the uprising and a “dramatic surge in crime” since January 28 of last year has resulted.
Prosecutors have obtained evidence from over 2,000 witnesses, including soldiers who said they had been given orders from above to fire on protesters.
While the death penalty has been mentioned since the start of Mubarak’s trial, actually hearing it mentioned in court will be “shocking” for many Egyptians, says the BBC‘s Jon Leyne from Cairo. The likelihood of Mubarak actually being executed –by hanging — or convicted on the charges is “another question entirely,” as the interior ministry has not cooperated in producing evidence and one key witness has altered his testimony. In September, former Defence Minister Field Marshal Mohammed Hussein Tantawi, the head of Egypt’s ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, stated to a closed-door session that Mubarak had never given orders to fire on protesters.
Mubarak’s trial has been adjourned until January 9. More than 800 protesters were killed in the 18-day revolt that led to the fall of Mubarak. Saying that he is in poor health, the 83-year-old former ruler is being held in a military hospital and wheeled into the courtroom on a stretcher.
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Read more: cairo, death penalty, egypt, hosni mubarak, human rights, Jan25, mideast, mideast conflict, Mubarak, regional conflict, SCAF, tahrir square
Photo by Al Jazeera English
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13 comments
+ add your ownI have visited Egypt quite a few times, from Cairo in the North to Aswan in the South, and quite a few places in between. The thing that struck memost was the contrast between the very rich and the vast majority who had so very little - Hilton Hotels in Sharm-el-Sheik whilst people in Luxor sleep in houses without roofs is a good example, but there are many more. President Mubarak certainly is guilty of presiding over a country of inequality but Egypt is far from the only place where this happens. All in all if he broke the Law then he should face trial but it should be a fair trial or those trying him are as guilty as he is!
Yeah, and George W Bush, Cheney and and their band of criminals are all walking around free. Go figure!
Shocking. However, it is important to have due process of law, from top to bottom. Without that there is no real democracy.
I wonder what part the US had in stiring up all these uprisings in the middle east?
It seems that what is happening in Egypt is replacement of one dictatorship with another dictatorship. What is happening to Mubarak is not justice, but revenge. He must pay for his crimes, but only after a fair trial before an unbiased court. The World Court in The Hague is the best place to try world leaders charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity.
This is just a miserable and ill 83 year old man now. He's a criminal, yes, but I can't imagine him hanged now that he can't even stand up on his own!
Executing Mubarak will not bring back democracy into Egypt. Egypt desperately needs a secular government and the Islamists should show the way that they can be a force for modernity and fairness. Otherwise, the West and many human rights individuals and organizations will no longer believe these Islamic groups. Time and tide will only tell what is the future for Egypt - persecuting and executing Mubarak does not serve to lead to a better Egypt.
That will larn him for being secular leaning and not hammering the crap out of minority religions and groups!
I hope the new "democratic" government of Egypt and all the people that struggled during Mubarak's regime would be able to resist the temptations to execute the former president and his cronies. Two wrongs do not make a right. Why must every dispossed Arab leader being executed mercilessly? This is unprecedented in any other society. If it is all about vengence, then shame on you, yes, every Arab or Middle-Eastern. The new government priority should be about rebuilding the country's infrastructure, economic programs and enhance the legal processes to ensure there is enough safeguard to prevent future dictators or corrupt leaders. The Egyptian public should demand these from their new leaders and not Hosni's head which is worthless now. Don't let the new government disguised their incompetence by harping on the past deeds of the previous leader. It sadden me, the Arab Spring is about more blood after another. An eye for an eye or blood for blood, then the whole of Egypt or the Arab world would be blind or dead.
They can just as easily wheel him to his execution; he better get busy dieing naturally
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