Gamal Essam El-Din attends court to hear a surprising defence of Hosni Mubarak Farid El-Deeb's five-day courtroom defence of former president Hosni Mubarak held many surprises, not least the lawyer's assertion on 22 January that Mubarak did not resign from office on 11 February 2011. Mubarak never signed a letter of resignation. The document of 11 February was signed by Omar Suleiman, Mubarak's vice president and chief of intelligence," said El-Deeb.Cairo Criminal Court, he argued, is therefore not entitled to try Mubarak who -- in his capacity as president and as stipulated by the 1971 constitution -- can only be referred to a "special military tribunal". Mubarak, as a consequence, should be acquitted of criminal charges because he remains technically president of Egypt and enjoys immunity from civil prosecution.Mubarak was forced from power on 11 February last year following an 18-day revolt against his regime. His trial on charges of graft and of ordering security forces to open fire on protesters began on 3 April. His co-defendants include former interior minister Habib El-Adli and six senior security officials. The trial was halted for three months -- between 24 September and 28 December -- and resumed with the prosecution stating its case, supplemented by statements from lawyers representing the protesters killed during the revolt. Both demanded that Mubarak be executed for manslaughter, abuse of power, illegal profiteering, and treason. Mubarak faces separate charges of corruption along with his sons, Gamal and Alaa, in a case being heard by the same court. El-Deeb's defence, which began on 17 January, challenged the prosecution basis for bringing any case at all. There is "no strong evidence", said El-Deeb, that Mubarak profited from the sale of Egyptian natural gas to Israel at below international prices. Nor, said El-Deeb, was his client at all connected with the deal. "President Mubarak had nothing to do with the sales. The case has in any case been referred to the State Security Court and former minister of petroleum Sameh Fahmi, along with a number of senior Petroleum Ministry officials, are currently facing prosecution over the deal. President Mubarak's name cannot be included on the charge sheet." The prosecution had accused Mubarak of using his position to allow Hussein Salem to monopolise the sale of Egyptian gas to Israel in return for five palatial properties in the Red-Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh. According to El-Deeb, former vice president Omar Suleiman testified on camera last April that when Mubarak learned about the low price of the gas being sold he ordered him to meet with Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert to renegotiate the contract or cancel the deal. Israel then agreed to amend the contract, more than doubling the price, and acquiesced to a contract review every three rather than 15 years. El-Deeb stressed that Suleiman's testimony had underlined that it was Mubarak who ordered the contract to be renegotiated, and that the former president had threatened to cut off the supplies to Israel should Tel Aviv not agree. El-Deeb also quoted Suleiman as saying it was the intelligence apparatus that led negotiations over the gas deal and that had endeavoured to create common interests with Israel, the goal being to bolster the peace process and improve Egypt's influence over Israeli policy. Egypt, he claimed, had agreed to supply Israel with gas sufficient to meet 40 per cent of its electricity needs in order to secure a degree of economic leverage with its neighbour. El-Deeb pointed to a Supreme Administrative Court ruling in 2010 stating that the export of gas to Israel was a sovereign decision and Mubarak's only role was to approve the deal. On 19 January El-Deeb claimed reports prepared by the Ministry of Justice's Illicit Gains Office concerning the fortune amassed by the Mubarak family had no basis in fact. "Mubarak's personal wealth has never exceeded $1 million," he said. "His son Gamal amassed his own wealth legitimately, while working in London as an investment banker." El-Deeb concluded his defence on 23 January, after which lawyers representing former interior minister El-Adli began to state their case. Led by Essam El-Battawi, El-Adli's defence team also quoted former vice president Omar Suleiman, to the effect that at least "90 foreign elements" had infiltrated Egypt during the protests against the regime, all via Sinai, aided and abetted by local Bedouins there, and that as a result security forces found themselves under concerted attack as these agents infiltrated the protesters to promote their own agenda, particularly on 28 January, the Friday of Anger. Foreign elements, said El-Battawi, had deliberately set out to incite riots with the objective of undermining the state. None of these foreign agitators had been captured, he went on, because security forces were not able to comb through Tahrir Square." El-Adli's lawyer also asked "how protests during the revolution could be described as peaceful while police stations were being attacked by protesters determined to burn them to the ground". El-Battawi then accused Omar Afifi, a former police officer currently living in the United States, of inciting riots in Egypt and providing protesters with bullet proof vests and fire proof clothing.
