Amid public antipathy and indifference, the second trial of ousted president Hosni Mubarak, alongside with his two sons, a businessman, and former six police chiefs, opened in Cairo on 25 August. Judge Mahmoud Kamel Al-Rashidi ordered that the trial be postponed to 15 September to give lawyers of the defendants sufficient time to review new documents pointing accusing fingers against Mubarak who is being charged with issuing orders to central security forces to kill peaceful pro-democracy protesters during the early days of the 25 January Revolution and profiteering from his influential post as president of Egypt. Mubarak's lawyer Fareed Al-Deeb told chief judge Al-Rashidi, “We are in need of at least six months to review thousands of papers and CDs and prepare our defence.” Mubarak was sentenced to 25 years in jail in June 2012 but the ruling was overturned, with the Court of Cassation, the highest judicial authority in Egypt, ordering a re-trial. The re-trial of Mubarak comes after a series of significant political developments, on top of which is that Mohamed Morsi was removed from office on 3 July, and also after the Ismailia Appeals Court charged Morsi and 33 other Brotherhood officials with collaborating with the Palestinian Hamas movement to storm Egyptian prisons during the heyday of the 25 January Revolution and spread havoc. An investigative judge was appointed last month to review the case, asking that Morsi be put in custody for 15 days pending investigation into charges of spying and helping Hamas forces infiltrate Egyptian borders. On Sunday, lawyers of Mubarak and other defendants, including former interior minister Habib Al-Adli, requested judge Al-Rashidi to consider the 24 Ismailia Appeals Court verdict “because we believe that this verdict will be highly beneficial to defendants, clearing them of the charge of inciting violence and killing protesters.” Mubarak's defence team also asked the court to summon Minister of Defence Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi; former interior minister Mansour Al-Eissawi; and police major general Ahmed Hanafi, a senior from the national security apparatus, to testify how foreign elements stormed Egyptian prisons during the revolution. Lawyer Mohamed Al-Damati said, “We ask that Al-Sisi be summoned because he was chief of military intelligence during the heyday of the 25 January Revolution.” Mubarak's lawyers also aim to exploit former interior minister Mansour Al-Eissawi's several statements in which he accused Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood of storming Egyptian prisons and torching police stations during the January revolution. Mubarak's lawyer Al-Deeb also requested the court to summon former prime minister Atef Ebeid to testify on natural gas exports to Israel. Mubarak is being accused of helping businessman Hussein Salem monopolise the export of Egyptian natural gas to Israel against hefty bribes and personal favours. Al-Adli's lawyer Mohamed Al-Guindi surprised the court by asking judges to review CDs featuring the dispersal of Muslim Brotherhood sit-ins at Rabaa Al-Adaweya and Al-Nahda on 14 August. Al-Guindi said, “The CDs clearly show that security forces refrained from using live ammunition in dispersing sit-ins and that it opened fire only when it was attacked by armed protesters.” Al-Guindi also asked judges to review verdicts issued by courts in Alexandria and Suez, acquitting police officers of killing protesters in the two governorates during the January Revolution. “These two courts stated that security forces have not been found guilty of opening fire on protesters and that they never received orders to kill citizens,” said Al-Guindi. Judge Al-Rashidi ordered armed forces to select two military officers to be tasked with investigating the ammunition used by central security forces during the revolution. It also asked a team of faculty of engineering professors to review the size of land plots allocated to businessmen in the Red Sea resort of Sharm Al-Sheikh from 1988 to 2010. The team will be also tasked with reviewing the number of land plots allocated to businessman Hussein Salem. Mubarak is being accused of helping Salem acquire plots of land in Sharm Al-Sheikh at cheap prices in return for obtaining five villas at undervalued prices. The team will also take charge of reviewing natural gas export contracts between Egypt and Israel to see if Salem was given a monopoly to secure huge profits. Unlike previous sessions, Mubarak's retrial attracted very few protesters. This was in spite of the fact that several revolutionary movements said they would organise protests to express dissatisfaction with last week's decision of prosecution authorities not to put Mubarak in custody after he exhausted the legal period. The retrial of Mubarak coincided with the opening of the trial of three leading officials of the Muslim Brotherhood, Mubarak's formidable foe. The list includes the Brotherhood's supreme guide Mohamed Badie and his two deputies Khairat Al-Shater and Mohamed Rashad Bayioumi, alongside 33 other officials. They face charges of inciting violence and issuing orders to armed militias to kill protesters in front of the headquarters of the Muslim Brotherhood in south Cairo's district of Al-Moqattam. The trial was postponed to 29 October after security forces said they were unable to transport the defendants to court. Badie's lawyer Mohamed Al-Domati accused security forces of not bringing Badie and other Brotherhood officials to court on purpose. “They know that if they were brought to court, judges would order their release,” said Al-Domati. He said he was not allowed to attend prosecution's investigation of Badie in violation of the Criminal Procedures Law. According to the Muslim Brotherhood's affiliated news website Rassd, Badie refused to be investigated, insisting that “he cannot be questioned by the anti-Muslim Brotherhood's coup authorities.” The military-backed government has been under pressure from Western powers, the European Union and the United States to release Badie, Morsi and other Brotherhood officials, on the grounds that the detention of the officials was politicised. Hundreds of leading officials from the Muslim Brotherhood, from which Morsi hails, have been arrested since the dispersal of the two Brotherhood sit-ins on 14 August. These include Safwat Hegazi, Rabaa Al-Adaweya's fiery cleric, and Osama Yassin, chief of the Brotherhood's military wing and a former minister of youth. According to Gamal Zahran, a political science professor with Suez Canal University, “the trial of the symbols of Mubarak and Muslim Brotherhood officials on one day is a clear signal that both are two faces of the same coin.” Zahran argued that “while Mubarak symbolised political authoritarianism and autocracy, the Muslim Brotherhood stood for religious tyranny and political despotism, and it was necessary for Egypt to revolt twice to get rid of both.” Zahran strongly rejected Western charges that the trials of Muslim Brotherhood officials are politicised. “Remember that Western officials and the media refrained from describing the trial of Mubarak and his associates as politicised although none of the symbols of this regime have so far been found guilty of inciting violence,” said Zahran. He added, “Egyptians watched live on TV how fiery Muslim Brotherhood clerics and officials exploited the sit-ins in Cairo and Giza to issue threats that they would burn Egypt, occupy Cairo Airport, and ask supporters to impose a siege on military installations.”
