EGYPT – Mubarak sentenced to life, Egypt protests

FORMER Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak, has been sentenced to life imprisonment for his role in killing protesters, after a trial that sets a precedent for holding Middle East autocrats to account.

 

His sentence was not enough for thousands of Egyptians who protested on the streets afterwards, in a nation already on edge before deciding who will be president – after the Oath goes to press. Some wanted Mubarak executed, others feared the judge’s ruling exposed weaknesses in the case that could let the ex-military strongman off on appeal.

 

According to a report by Reuters’, 84-year-old Mubarak was wheeled into a courtroom cage on a hospital gurney to join co-defendants including his two sons Alaa and Gamal, former Interior Minister Habib al-Adli, and six security officials.

 

His two sons, businessman Alaa, and Gamal, a former banker, had corruption charges quashed, but remained in jail over another case. It was the first time an ousted Arab leader had faced an ordinary court in person since a wave of uprisings shook the Arab world last year, sweeping away four entrenched rulers.

 

THE FETED FALLEN

Long feted by Arab leaders and his US and other Western allies as a lynchpin politician who offered stability in a turbulent region, Mubarak’s ousting has helped redraw the Middle East’s political map.

 

The Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s biggest Islamist group, is now fielding one of the two challengers in a fraught run-off vote for the presidency against Mubarak’s last prime minister, Ahmed Shafiq, who, like his former boss, once led the air force.

 

Unlike elections in Mubarak’s time, that were routinely rigged and the outcome guaranteed, no one can be sure who will emerge victor in the June 16 and 17 election (after the Oath has gone to press) that has polarised the nation, leaving many worrying both about Islamist rule and the alternative of handing power back to a former military man.

 

Rather than a healing experience that many Egyptians wanted, many saw the trial, that acquitted top security officials, as showing how much of Mubarak’s old order was still in place.

 

After the sentence, protesters gathered in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, once the geographical focus for the uprising that drove Mubarak out. In Alexandria, demonstrators chanted: “We are done with talk, we want an execution!”

 

TV news channel Al Jazeera reported that Mubarak would lodge an appeal.

 

BROTHERHOOD WANTS RETRIAL

Some Egyptians said Mubarak’s sentencing was enough, even if they were unhappy security officials were off the hook.

 

The Muslim Brotherhood demanded a re-trial for Mubarak, saying he made Egypt into a staunch Arab ally of the United States.

 

Yasser Ali, campaign spokesman for Muslim Brotherhood presidential candidate, Mohamed Mursi, said: “The public prosecutor did not carry out its full duty in gathering adequate evidence to convict the accused for killing protesters.”

 

Mursi has vowed that if he is president, he would use the courts to ensure his predecessor stayed in jail. “It is not possible to release Mubarak,” he told Reuters. “I promise the martyrs we will retrieve their rights in full, God willing.”

 

Meanwhile, lawyers acting for the families of victims said the acquittal of the six security officials showed the weakness of the prosecution case. They said the sentence was designed to appease public anger, but could be overturned at appeal.

 

New York-based rights group Human Rights Watch said the ruling “sends a powerful message to Egypt’s future leaders that they are not above the law”. But it said the acquittals suggested a prosecution failure to fully investigate killings of protesters.