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."

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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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Ex-French leader Chirac can skip corruption trial

PARIS — Former French President Jacques Chirac won't have to attend his long-awaited corruption trial, a judge ruled Monday, after Chirac's lawyers said the 78-year-old is suffering from severe memory lapses.

Judge Dominique Pauthe said he took into account a written appeal and four-page medical report sent Friday by Chirac's defense team, and decided that the trial will be allowed to go ahead without the ex-president in court.

"In light of the items received in support of this letter, the personal appearance will not be ordered," Pauthe said after deliberating for less than an hour. "Jacques Chirac will thus be judged in his absence."

France's first trial involving a former head of state since World War II involves the alleged creation of more than two-dozen fake City Hall jobs used to fund Chirac's conservative party while he was mayor of Paris from 1977 to 1995.

Chirac, who has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing, enjoyed immunity from prosecution during his subsequent 12 years as head of state.

The trial was suspended in March shortly after it began to allow consideration of an appeal by one of his co-defendants. On trial Monday with Chirac were two of his former chiefs of staff at City Hall and seven others said to have benefited improperly from the graft.

Ahead of France's presidential election next year, the trial is shaping up as a glimpse of the unseemly underworld of kickbacks, corruption and embezzlement that has long roiled the French political system.

Judge Pauthe on Monday read from the defense letter, which said Chirac wanted to be heard because his testimony would be "useful for our democracy" and show that "all French people are equal under the law."

Chirac's legal team issued a statement Saturday arguing that he no longer has the full capacity to participate in court proceedings, and asking that he be allowed to skip them.

The letter, Pauthe said, came accompanied by four pages of medical records, including a Chirac brain scan in April and a medical report drawn up in July.

"It's my belief that he isn't in any condition to remember events that date back 20 years," Chirac defense lawyer Jean Veil told the court.

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Veil said Chirac suffers from "severe memory lapses" linked to an "irreversible condition." He said Chirac's condition was not a sickness but a "symptom" possibly linked to his 2005 stroke or "other origins."

Jerome Karsenti, a lawyer for the anti-corruption group Anticor, urged an independent medical exam to make sure Chirac's alleged medical trouble is not just an "umpteenth delay" and an attempt at "running away."

Chirac's wife, Bernadette, denied rumors earlier this year that he had Alzheimer's disease, but she acknowledged he was experiencing problems that were either linked to a 2005 stroke or his age.

Georges Kiejman, another Chirac lawyer, gave some of the most intimate details yet of Chirac's mental and physical condition, but declined to state the precise medical diagnosis.

"He can still have charming conversations like he's always had. He can speak in general terms and discuss broad issues — often interesting ones," he said. "But he cannot concentrate on specific points, which are at the heart of this investigation."

The case is among many scandals to hound Chirac over his years as mayor — including claims that he and his family improperly ate some €2.1 million worth of food from 1987 to 1995 at the city's expense. Those cases were rejected either for lack of evidence or because they had surpassed the statute of limitations.

A prison term for Chirac, who famously rallied against George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq, is seen as very unlikely. But on paper, if convicted, Chirac could be jailed for up to 10 years and fined €150,000 ($215,000).

Many critics have decried the trappings of presidential immunity in France.

"This is without a doubt a two-track justice system," Eva Joly, leader of the Green Party and a former high-profile judge, said Monday on France-Info radio. "Having to wait a decade for a verdict isn't right."

Chirac is the first of a former French head of state on trial since the World War II era, when Marshal Philippe Petain, the leader of France's Nazi collaborationist regime, was convicted of treason and shipped into exile.

While Chirac has retired from day-to-day politics, he remains a huge presence on the political landscape. The party of Nicolas Sarkozy, Chirac's successor as president, has its roots in the political machine that Chirac built.

The popular, avuncular former president made headlines in June after appearing in public with Socialist presidential hopeful Francois Hollande, and saying that he would vote for him — which resonated as a dig against Sarkozy. Chirac's office later said it was a joke.

___

Pierre-Antoine Souchard contributed to this report.

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Gaddafi must face trial in Libya before ICC: rebels (Reuters)

CAIRO (Reuters) – Muammar Gaddafi must face trial in Libya before being transferred to the International Criminal Court (ICC), said Abdel Hafiz Ghoga, spokesman for the rebel National Council Tuesday.

Ghoga told Egyptian state television that Gaddafi, who was indicted by the ICC in May for war crimes, was still in Libya and there was no chance that he will escape.

"Gaddafi is still in Libya, if not in Tripoli, then he may have sneaked to the center (of the country) or the south," Ghoga said.

"We are keen to capture Gaddafi and to try him in Libya before he is tried in the criminal court," he added.

Libyan rebels were searching for the Libyan leader who ruled the North African Arab country for 42 years after they stormed his headquarters in Tripoli Tuesday.

Asked if the rebels would allow Gaddafi an escape route, Ghoga said: "This is impossible. There is no chance for him to escape at all. Gaddafi has no choice."

(Reporting by Ali Abdelatti; Writing by Sami Aboudi)

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China launches first aircraft carrier on maiden sea trial (Reuters)

BEIJING (Reuters) – China launched its first aircraft carrier for a maiden run on Wednesday, a step likely to boost patriotic pride at home and jitters abroad about Beijing's naval ambitions.

The long-awaited debut of the vessel, a refitted former Soviet craft, marked a step forward in China's long-term plan to build a carrier force that can project power into the Asian region, where seas are spanned by busy shipping lanes and thorny territorial disputes.

"Its symbolic significance outweighs its practical significance," said Ni Lexiong, an expert on Chinese maritime policy at the Shanghai University of Political Science and Law.

"We're already a maritime power, and so we need an appropriate force, whether that's aircraft carriers or battleships, just like the United States or the British empire did," he said in a telephone interview.

The carrier "left its shipyard in Dalian Port in northeast Liaoning province on Wednesday morning to start its first sea trial," said the official Xinhua news agency, describing the trip as a tentative test run for the unfinished ship.

The aircraft carrier, which is about 300 meters (984 feet) long, plowed through fog and sounded its horn three times as it left the dock, Xinhua said on its military news microblog.

Xinhua said that "building a strong navy that is commensurate with China's rising status is a necessary step and an inevitable choice for the country to safeguard its increasingly globalised national interests."

Chinese citizens said the carrier launch showed their country deserved more respect from the rest of the world, despite problems it faces at home.

A high-speed train crash last month left many Chinese people bemoaning what they called officials' reckless hunger for showcase technological breakthroughs.

"An aircraft carrier is the mark of major powers," Pan Chunli, a 29-year-old IT technician in Beijing told Reuters.

"China has grown dramatically. The whole world should take a fresh look at China, viewing it as a rising power that it has the ability to defend its rights and territory."

Retired Chinese navy Rear Admiral Yin Zhuo told state-run television that his country intended to build an air carrier group, but the task would be long and difficult.

"As for forming a carrier group, I think that will take at least ten years," he told a Chinese television broadcast on the carrier launch.

PRESTIGE AND POWER

Last month, China was refitting the old, unfinished Soviet vessel bought from Ukraine's government, and sources told Reuters it was also building two of its own carriers.

"China has had a longstanding fascination with the national prestige attached to aircraft carriers, and this first sea trial may be seen as a crucial step toward the goal of achieving great naval power status," said Chengxin Pan, an expert on China at Deakin University in Australia

"But for many neighbors, it may symbolize something different and more unsettling. It is inevitable that neighboring countries will react with some alarm, especially given recent disputes in the South China Sea as well as the maritime incident between China and Japan last year," he said.

If Beijing is serious about having a viable carrier strike group, however, it will need three carriers, Ashley Townshend at the Lowy Institute for International Policy in Sydney told Reuters in an interview before the debut of the vessel.

China would also have to develop support ships and aircraft for any carrier group, Townshend said, noting it would take some 10 years to develop a viable carrier strike group.

In China's neighborhood, India and Thailand already have aircraft carriers, and Australia has ordered two multi-purpose carriers. The United States operates 11 carriers.

"The Philippines should not be concerned with this development. An aircraft carrier is an offensive tool but I don't think China has the intention to use it to bully its neighbors," the former chief of the Philippines' navy, retired Admiral Ferdinand Golez, told Reuters.

Before the launch, a Pentagon spokesman played down the likelihood of any immediate leaps from China's carrier program.

LONG-STANDING DISPUTES

But that is just one part of China's naval modernization drive, which has forged ahead while other powers tighten their military budgets to cope with debt woes.

China has been building new submarines, surface ships and anti-ship ballistic missiles as part of its naval modernization.

The country's growing reach at sea is triggering regional jitters that have fed into long-standing territorial disputes, and could speed up military expansion across Asia.

In the past year, China has had run-ins at sea with Japan, Vietnam and the Philippines. The incidents -- boat crashes and charges of territorial incursions -- have been minor, but the diplomatic reaction often heated.

"Overall, the perception of a rapidly rising and potentially threatening China is likely to be reinforced and Beijing will face enormous challenges in dispelling such a perception," said Pan, the lecturer at Deakin University.

Last week, Japan warned that China's naval forces were likely to increase activities around its waters.

"This is showing that China is in the process of acquiring capability to control South China Sea as well as East China Sea," said Yoshihiko Yamada, a professor at Japan's Tokai University about the carrier trial.

China's defense budget has shot up nearly 70 percent over five years, while Japan, struggling with public debt, has cut military outlays by 3 percent over the same period, a Japanese government report said.

"A single, solitary aircraft carrier floating on the sea, without the accompanying forces, doesn't constitute a battle force," said Ni, the Shanghai professor.

"It would be a sitting duck if you tried to send it out."

(Additional reporting by Sabrina Mao and Sally Huang in Beijing; Manny Mogato in Manila; Jeremy Laurence in Seoul; Michael Perry in Sydney; and Kiyoshi Takenaka in Tokyo; Editing by John Chalmers)

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Forensic experts attack Amanda Knox trial evidence

PERUGIA, Italy — Independent forensic experts took the stand on Monday to attack key pieces of evidence used to convict U.S. student Amanda Knox of the murder of her British roommate in the Italian city of Perugia in 2007.

The two court-appointed experts, Carla Vecchiotti and Stefano Conti, told an appeal hearing that the knife thought to have been used to kill 21 year-old Meredith Kercher carried no trace of blood but may have been contaminated with other DNA traces.

Presenting the findings from a report released last month, they said police had used the same gloves to take different pieces of evidence during their initial examination of the house the two women shared in the university town of Perugia.

Kercher was found half naked in Nov. 2007 lying in a pool of blood with her throat cut.

Knox, 24, her former Italian boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito and Ivoirian Rudy Guede were convicted and jailed in 2009 for the murder after what judges concluded was a frenzied sex game that spiraled out of control.

Both Knox and Sollecito, who have appealed against the original ruling were in court on Monday as was Knox's mother, Edda Mellas.

"You know, it was an excellent day, to be able to see everything, step by step exactly what our experts said, you know, and now confirmed by independent experts is very powerful," Mellas told Reuters Television after the hearing.

The report by Vecchiotti and Conti confirmed police conclusions that Knox's DNA was found on the handle of a knife they identified as the murder weapon but said that the material found on the blade was starch, rather than blood.

"There are no scientific elements which would confirm the presence of blood traces on the knife. The protocols for minimizing the risk of contamination were not respected," their testimony said.

They also said there was no DNA evidence on a clip from Kercher's bra which police said was traceable to Sollecito.

The two independent experts had been commissioned by the appeal court to go over the forensic evidence in the case which has attracted huge media interest and severe criticism of police methods from the defense team.

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They made a scathing attack on the original investigation, saying that proper decontamination procedures had not been followed, there was insufficient documentation of the amount of DNA evidence collected and inadequate "real time" analysis.

The next hearing is scheduled for July 30 when the experts face cross-examination by prosecutor and the defense team.

Francesco Maresca, a lawyer for the Kercher family, said the evidence provided by Vecchiotti and Conti was not conclusive.

"I hope, I am certain and trust that on Saturday we will be able to clarify in court the fact that they did not follow the original investigation and therefore did not follow the profound exchange of dialogue between various consultants and once again we will remind of the principal factors in this case," he said.

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