Mubarak trial judge summons top military officials‎

CAIRO — The court trying Hosni Mubarak over the killing of protesters in January Wednesday summoned the head of Egypt's ruling military council and other top officials to give testimony next week that could prove decisive in determining the fate of the ousted president.

Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, Mubarak's defense minister for 20 years and now leader of the army council, and others will give their testimony behind closed doors, a move that may not please Egyptians who have demanded a transparent trial.

Judge Ahmed Refaat said the court that has convened four times since August 3 would meet on a daily basis next week, accelerating the trial of Mubarak who is charged with conspiring to kill protesters and inciting some officers to use live ammunition.

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He stunned the court at the end of Wednesday's session by calling as witnesses Tantawi, Armed Forces Chief of Staff Sami Enan, Mubarak's former intelligence chief and briefly vice president Omar Suleiman and Interior Minister Mansour el-Essawy. Tantawi will testify on September 11.

'Big surprise'
"Today's decision is a big surprise that will transform the case and take us into any entirely different field," plaintiff lawyer Hassan Abou El Einein told Reuters.

Many opponents of Mubarak, who has attended each session lying on a stretcher after being hospitalized in April, have been frustrated by the pace and progress of the trial after about 850 people were killed in the uprising.

Mubarak, who was driven from office after three decades in power on February 11, is the first Arab leader to stand trial in person since unrest erupted across the Middle East this year.

"What happened today is that Egypt has become a state where the law reigns," said Khaled Abu Bakr, representing families of victims.

Refaat said the officials would testify behind closed doors due to national security, and banned publication of the testimonies.

Slideshow: Hosni Mubarak on trial (on this page)

"I don't want to hear a sound until I am done with reading the decisions," he told the court before making the announcement. There were gasps and whispers as he read each name.

The court adjourned until Thursday, when two prosecution witnesses will testify.

Secrecy
Police witnesses called by the prosecution this week have suggested that neither Mubarak nor his former Interior Minister, Habib al-Adli, gave orders to shoot. Two witnesses said they were told to show "self restraint."

Some Egyptians accepted the need for secrecy in high-level testimonies. But others were disappointed, including Ayman Nour, who ran and lost against Mubarak in Egypt's only multi-candidate presidential election in 2005 and was later jailed.

"I don't think that the press ban is beneficial ... as it will lead to more confusion among the public and will open the door to speculation about what happened in ... testimonies that are crucial to the case," he said.

The judge exonerated one police witness the prosecution charges with perjury, accusing him of giving false testimony after they said he had changed an earlier account.

Prosecutors said that police officer Mohamed Abdel Hakim had initially told the prosecution during their probe that he was given 300 shotgun cartridges, but in court he denied this.

"The guns were not allowed to be with the unit. The instructions were for officers not even to take their personal guns," Abdel Hakim told the court.

When Abdel Hakim left the court, where the session often became heated, one lawyer shouted after him: "You liar, you liar. You have been paid. This is the blood of your brother."

The judge looked to the cage and asked defendants if they had comments. Mubarak responded: "No I have no comment."

"I believe the prosecution were shocked today because all the witnesses that they had gathered have turned into witnesses of denial (of the charges)," Essam el-Batawy, Adli's defense lawyer told Reuters. "This is a huge blow to the case."

There was no repeat Wednesday of the scuffles between Mubarak's opponents and supporters outside the court that accompanied others sessions. But some protesters still gathered.

"My friend dropped dead in Tahrir Square right next to me. He was shot in the head by the police," said Rabia al-Sheikh outside the court. "Why don't they let us inside to testify. Why are they calling on police to testify and not the people?"

One of Wednesday's witnesses was an officer who quit the force in 2004, Tarek Abdel Monem, who described being injured by a shotgun on a bridge near Tahrir Square, the focus of the protests. He said a man next to him died from an injury to his face but he did not know what caused his death.

A top police officer told the court at an earlier session on Monday that he was not aware of any order to fire on protesters, but he said police were given live ammunition to protect the Interior Ministry.

General Hussein Saeed Mohamed Moussa, in charge of communications for state security, said he believed the decision to issue arms was taken by senior officer Ahmed Ramzi.

Ramzi is one of six officers on trial with the former interior minister, the ex-president and Mubarak's two sons.

Alaa, Mubarak's eldest son, shook his head inside the cage at one point when a lawyer acting for victims' families tearfully addressed the court saying: "Mubarak was the worst president Egypt has ever seen."

Copyright 2011 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.

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Scuffles disrupt Mubarak trial as police testify

CAIRO — The prosecution's first witness in the trial of ousted Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak startled the court in a stormy session Monday, testifying that police were not ordered to fire on protesters in Cairo's Tahrir Square in a contradiction of the prosecutors' central claim.

The police general's statement could damage the prosecution's case that Mubarak and his security chief gave the green light to police to use lethal force to crush the uprising, during which at least 850 people were killed.

Prosecution lawyers were visibly stunned by the testimony of the witness, Gen. Hussein Moussa, and angrily accused him of changing his story from the affadavit he initially gave prosecutors.

Relatives of protesters killed during Egypt's uprising scuffled with police and tried to force their way into the Cairo courtroom, demanding to be allowed to attend the latest session in the trial.

Live TV broadcasts of the landmark trial have been halted by a judge's order, and family members massed outside the courtroom were angered they could not witness the prosecution of the former leader charged with complicity in their loved ones' deaths.

In Monday's sessions, proceedings were taking a key turn, with the first witnesses taking the stand after the procedural issues that have dominated the trial so far.

'Beginning of the real trial'
The first witness to take the stand was top police official, Gen. Hussein Saeed Mohamed Mursi, head of communication in the state security service.

He told the court that police were instructed to use tear gas and water cannon to disperse protesters on the night of Jan. 25, when protests against Mubarak erupted, state television said.

"The first witness denied the possibility of using automatic weapons against the protesters," state television said, quoting Mursi.

Mubarak's downfall came on Feb. 11 after an 18-day popular uprising.

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Gamal Eid, a lawyer representing 16 of some 850 people killed in the uprising, earlier told Reuters Mursi worked in the police operations room during the uprising and had been accused of deleting recordings of what happened in the room at that time.

"(Mursi) had been accused in a decision issued by the general prosecutor of deleting those recordings but he later turned into a witness," Eid said.

The three other witnesses to be called by the court are police officers who were in the operations room during the 18 days of protests. The court named them as Emad Badr Saeed, Bassim Mohamed el-Otaify and Mahmoud Galal Abdel Hamid.

"This the beginning of the real trial," said Khaled Abu Bakr, a lawyer representing families of slain protesters.

Chaotic scenes outside courthouse
The 83-year-old Mubarak, who is in ill health, was shown on state TV being wheeled on a gurney from a helicopter that landed in the Police Academy on Cairo's outskirts, where the court has been set up. He shielded his face from the sun as he was taken into an ambulance to deliver him to the session. In the courtroom, he lay in a hospital bed in the defendants' cage along with his co-defendants, including his two sons.

Outside the academy compound, hundreds of victims' families and protesters pushed and shoved in an attempt to break through the main gates and enter the court building. Black-clad anti-riot police swung batons and briefly clashed with the protesters, who hurled stones at the security forces.

Interactive: The rise and fall of Hosni Mubarak (on this page)

TV footage also showed metal barricades being thrown, while hundreds of anti-riot police chased young men in the streets.

Ramadan Ahmed Abdou, the father of a slain protester, said he applied for permission to attend the session and had been told he could pick up the permit Monday morning before the trial. But when he arrived, he was told there was no permit for him.

"People are very frustrated," he said. "We said OK when the judge decided to ban the broadcast of the trial, but we want to see it ourselves," he said.

Crowds held posters of slain protesters and shouted, "To die like them or to get their rights." One held a hangman's noose and demanded Mubarak's execution. Some set fire to pictures of Mubarak, while chanting, "The people want to execute the butcher."

Nearby, about 50 Mubarak supporters in a counterdemonstration cried out, "Why humiliate the president who protected us?"

Emotional proceedings
It was the third time that family members and others have tried but been unable to get into the courtroom since the trial began on Aug. 3. Showing the hearings live on state television had been a nod to widespread public demand for a chance to see the trial of the man who led the country for nearly 30 years. It was also a gesture to activists who complained that the military rulers now in charge of the country were dragging their feet bringing Mubarak and stalwarts of his regime to justice.

But in an Aug. 15 session, the chief judge, Ahmed Rifaat, stopped the live broadcasts to "protect the public interest." The move appeared to be aimed at reducing what had been a rather circus-like atmosphere in the courtroom, but many saw it as aimed at preventing humiliation of the president or tamping down public interest.

Slideshow: Hosni Mubarak on trial (on this page)

Mubarak is charged with corruption and with complicity in the killings of protesters. About 850 people were killed when police opened fire on protesters during the uprising. His sons, Gamal and Alaa, also face corruption charges, and his former Interior Minister Habib el-Adly and six top police officers are also charged in the protester killings.

In the court Monday, the session was stormy, as the many lawyers involved in the case shouted insults at each other. According to Gamal Eid, a human rights lawyer, who tweeted from inside the courtroom, the session started with "big fight between the victims' lawyers and Mubarak's lawyers." Chants of "'the people want the execution of the ousted one,' rocked the courtroom," he said.

Eid tweeted that lawyers screamed and yelled at the judges, prompting Rifaat to briefly halt the session. Egyptian television confirmed that the session was halted and then resumed.

More than 1,000 witnesses called
Attorneys have filed motions to summon more than 1,000 witnesses in the trial, including Hussein Tantawi, the head of the council of generals that took over control of the country after Mubarak's fall. Tantawi was also Mubarak's defense minister.

The scene of Mubarak in bed inside a defendants cage was an unprecedented moment in the Arab world, the first time a modern Mideast leader has been put on trial fully by his own people. However, more than six months after the uprising, Egyptians are still agitated at the slow pace of reforms and the failure of the ruling military council in restoring law and order in the streets.

A call for big rally on Sept. 9 has been circulating on social networking sites against the military's policy of putting civilians on trial in front of military tribunal. Thousands — including protesters — have been put on swift trials by the tribunals, drawing condemnations from rights activists, while Mubarak and his associates have gone before civilian courts.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

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