Lawyers representing families of the victims of the 25 January Revolution have demanded the death penalty in the trial of Hosni Mubarak, Gamal Essam El-Din reports This week it was the turn of lawyers representing the families of the victims of the 25t January revolution to state their case against former president Hosni Mubarak. On Monday and Tuesday lawyers accused Mubarak, his longest serving interior minister Habib El-Adli, and six senior security officers of playing a direct role in orchestrating the killing of peaceful protesters who had gathered in Tahrir Square to demand Mubarak resign. Earlier in the case the prosecution had accused Mubarak of abuse of power and illegal profiteering. On 17 January lawyers representing Mubarak, his two sons Gamal and Alaa, business associate Hussein Salem, El-Adli and six security officers, will begin their defence. The court will listen to Farid El-Deeb, the lawyer defending Mubarak and his two sons, for five days -- until 22 January. El-Adli's defence is scheduled between 23 to 30 January. Lawyers of the other six defendants will begin stating their cases from 7 to 16 February. On 9 January, lawyers representing families of the victims argued that even if Mubarak did not issue orders to open fire on protesters, he failed to issue orders to stop killing and therefore deserves a death sentence. Sameh Ashour, lead counsel for the victims' families, argued that Mubarak's speech to the nation on 28 January, 2011, the Friday of Anger, amounted to an "open recognition of the use of force". He said he had submitted documentation to the court showing that 160 police officers had been issued with automatic weapons and 4,800 live rounds. "When the military establishment rejected Mubarak's plan for grooming his son to inherit power," said Ashour, "Mubarak turned to the security forces, arming them to the teeth so they could impose the father-son succession scenario and repress any revolt." Mubarak, 83, remained silent throughout Ashour's speech. He appeared in court on a stretcher beside which his two sons, Alaa and Gamal, stood in the defendants' cage. Mubarak was wearing dark sunglasses and covered by a black blanket. His younger son Gamal was holding a copy of the Quran. Since the trial resumed on 28 December after a three-month delay, Mubarak has been brought by helicopter to courthouse from the army's International Clinic on the Cairo-Ismailia road. In addition to submitting a report from the "operations room affiliated to the Central Security Forces [CSF], indicating that four units, each made up of 50 policemen, had been armed with automatic weapons and live ammunition", Ashour also reviewed a phone call between former interior minister El-Adli and former Central Security Forces chief Ahmed Ramzi. During the phone call El-Adli is alleged to have told Ramzi he must use whatever force was necessary to disperse protesters "because I promised Gamal to get rid of all of them". Last week chief prosecutor Mustafa Suleiman told the court that only Mubarak had the authority to issue orders to the Interior Ministry and police to open fire on protesters during the 18-day revolt. While Ashour restricted the charges he levelled against Mubarak, El-Adli and former security chiefs, other lawyers have accused Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, chairman of the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), and former chief of General Intelligence and vice president Omar Suleiman, of perjury. Amir Salem, the human rights activist who is representing some of the families of victims and is a regular guest on satellite channel talk shows, claimed both Tantawi and Suleiman willfully misled the court while delivering secret testimony last September. "They didn't tell the truth in order to protect their former patron," Salem told the court. At one point in the proceedings Salem introduced a video recording showing armed men in plain clothes attacking protesters during the revolution under watchful eyes of Egypt's Republican Guard, the elite force tasked with protecting the president of the republic. Tantawi and Suleiman's testimony took place under a complete media blackout. The leaks that have appeared suggest both denied any knowledge of Mubarak giving orders that protesters be shot, and even questioned whether he was aware of the deaths. During a visit to Upper Egypt last September Tantawi said in public that, "I never said anyone gave me orders to open fire on protesters�ê� this is my word before God and the people of Egypt." Mubarak appointed Tantawi as minister of defence in 1991. Suleiman was appointed to the powerful position of General Intelligence chief in 1993. Suleiman, a long-time confidant of the former president, was appointed vice president on 30 January, just 12 days before Mubarak was toppled from power. Lawyer Mohamed El-Damati cited El-Adli's own testimony to show that Mubarak was well aware of the killing of protesters, likening the former president's failure to order their halt to "murdering by abstention". "It is like a doctor standing idly by while someone bleeds to death, or like a mother who lets a newborn baby starve," he said. On 5 January, prosecutor Mustafa Suleiman demanded the death penalty for Mubarak, his former security chief and six ex-security officials for their role in the deaths of protesters, a call echoed by several of the victims' families' lawyers. On Tuesday, lawyers focussed on the charges against Mubarak's younger son, and heir apparent, Gamal. One lawyer accused Gamal Mubarak of embezzling 75 tonnes of gold while a second argued he should face charges of treason "for attempting to turn Egypt from a republic into a monarchy".
