Reports about the health of ousted former president Hosni Mubarak reached a crescendo this week, with the truth still being shrouded in mystery, reports Gamal Essam El-Din The health of deposed former president Hosni Mubarak continued to be shrouded in mystery this week, despite the fact that the trial of Mubarak, his two sons and business associate Hussein Salem, is scheduled for just one month away, with all four being summoned to appear before the court on 3 August. This week in particular saw a peak in conflicting reports on Mubarak's health, with Minister of Health Ashraf Hatem saying on 26 June that he had received no "proof to support claims by Hosni Mubarak's lawyer, Farid El-Deeb, to the effect that the ousted former president suffers from cancer." El-Deeb had previously said that Mubarak, in custody at a hospital in the Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh, was suffering from "stomach cancer and the tumours are growing". Joining forces with Hatem, Abdel-Hamid Abaza, an assistant to the health minister, said that "the Health Ministry does not have a single scientific document certifying that Mubarak suffers from cancer." It also had no clear information about the surgery the former president had received earlier in Germany. In March 2010, Mubarak went to Germany for an operation, with doctors saying at the time that he had undergone gall-bladder surgery and had had a growth removed from his small intestine. "He should have had medical follow-up, but that did not happen," El-Deeb said, adding that he had asked the ruling Higher Council of the Armed Forces (HCAF) to allow a German medical team including the surgeon who had operated on Mubarak last year to come to Sharm El-Sheikh to examine Mubarak. These reports were then followed by others on 27 and 28 June, when it was reported that the German team, led by Dr Markus Buchler, the surgeon who had operated on Mubarak in Germany, had arrived in Sharm El-Sheikh on Sunday. "The team examined Mubarak and found that he was suffering from cancer, which was slowly progressing," Al-Ahram 's Arabic edition reported on 28 June, writing that "based on blood tests and other medical check-ups, German doctors diagnosed that Mubarak, 82, was suffering from an early stage of cancer that was progressing very slowly." However, the Al-Ahram report was denied by Hatem on 28 June, who said that Mubarak had not yet been checked by any foreign medical teams. Hatem said Buchler was conducting medical checks on other patients at a private hospital in Nasr City, and permission to visit Mubarak could only be granted by the prosecutor-general. German sources denied on 28 June that Buchler had left Germany for Egypt. Meanwhile, it was also disclosed that Mubarak's two sons, Alaa and Gamal, had written to prominent Omani businessman and adviser to Sultan Qaboos bin Said, Omar Zawawi, accusing Egyptian judicial and prosecution authorities of manipulating their trial to satisfy public anger. According to a UPI report from Washington, in a letter hand-carried out of prison the two sons had complained that "we have been through the rounds of politically motivated investigations that resemble a witch hunt directed at our family as a whole." According to the Mubaraks, "the media are being manipulated, the investigations of us and others corrupted, the charges levelled against us manufactured, with the alleged accused not daring to speak out or even have their supporters or lawyers speak out in their defence." "For the past three months," the Mubarak brothers wrote, "we have been subjected to an organised media campaign, led by state media outlets, to leak false details about the investigations, continue relentlessly to slander our reputations, spread lies about fabricated charges against us, all without allowing us any space whatsoever to respond." "They have even launched a slander campaign against any lawyer that would come forward to join our defence team," they said. "Finally, and ahead of a planned demonstration calling for our trial, the authorities abruptly rushed an investigation, manufactured charges against us, and in less than 72 hours referred us to court, and then announced our first court appearance for 3 August. This is the mother of all appeasements by the authorities: Hosni Mubarak and his two sons will stand in court together on fabricated and totally outrageous charges." The sons wondered "who in his right mind could believe that Hosni Mubarak, with his history of fighting for the dignity of his people, could even contemplate committing such crimes. In fact, he decided to step down to prevent the violence from escalating. The evidence put together for the case is a farce." The two Mubaraks accused the Muslim Brotherhood of fabricating lies against the family. "Our trial has little chance of being fair," they wrote. "A senior cabinet member, a former attorney-general during our father's time and minister of justice in the 'new Egypt', announced the verdict eight weeks ago, before the supposedly independent attorney-general's office completes or even seriously starts the investigation." "The shocking side to all this is the fact that not a single voice of criticism about such a flagrant manipulation of the justice system has been heard either from within the government or from the orchestrated state media." The Mubaraks' letter caused anger in political circles, with many wondering how it had been carried out of the Tora prison south of Cairo where the brothers have been held since 13 April. Several opposition newspapers accused El-Deeb of using visits to the prison to smuggle out the letter and send it to Zawawi and the foreign media. The newspapers also said that they had received hundreds of comments from ordinary people wondering "how the Mubarak family can complain about an unfair trial when their father's regime fabricated a plethora of unfair and arbitrary trials for its opponents." Gamal Zahran, a professor of political science and a former opposition MP, told the Weekly that "it is ludicrous for the Mubarak sons to complain that they have been subjected to an organised campaign led by state-run media outlets. We all know that the Mubaraks were fond of using these same outlets to launch hostile campaigns against their opponents. Now it is their turn to face the music," he said. The largest question, however, concerns why the two Mubaraks should have sent the letter to Zawawi. It is no secret that Mubarak and Qaboos bin Said had forged a close relationship, with bin Said refusing to join with other Arab countries in severing relations with Egypt after the signing of the peace treaty with Israel in 1979. He also used to exchange family visits with the Mubaraks and bought a palace in Sharm El-Sheikh, where he used to spend the summers. The Mubaraks' close relationship with bin Said may have entailed a close relationship with adviser Zawawi. It has been disclosed that Zawawi visited Mubarak during the 25 January Revolution, most probably on 6 and 10 February, being the first Arab official to arrive in Cairo since the start of the protests in January. On these occasions, Zawawi is believed to have delivered messages from bin Said. He is also thought to have had a close business relationship with Gamal Mubarak, though it was not the relationship between Mubarak and bin Said that brought Gamal and Zawawi together. "They got to know each other in London, where Gamal was working with Bank of America in the first half of the 1990s," anonymous sources said, adding that "they did business together and Zawawi gave Gamal several presents, including a villa in Mayfair in London and a Porsche."
