CAIRO – Hundreds of diehard supporters of ousted president Hosni Mubarak clashed with his opponents in central Cairo late Wednesday leaving dozens injured, a medical official said on Thursday. "The ambulances carried 67 injured people from outside the State television building in Maspero (near the Nile). Most of them have had slight injuries and left hospitals," the official said. Mubarak loyalists had gathered outside the State television building on the Nile Corniche to mark the strongman's birthday – Mubarak turned 83 on Wednesday – and to denounce calls for his prosecution. "They said he was a national symbol who deserved respect, sparking the fury of anti-Mubarak protesters who called for his execution for his role in the killing of anti-regime protesters," the official said. He added that Musbarak's supporters had transfered their protest from the Nile Corniche to a a nearby square in Mohandsin, where they had a cake to congratulate the former president on his 83rd birthday. Fighting erupted between the two sides who pelted each other with stones. The Traffic was blocked during the bloody confrontations before the Army stepped in to break up the crowd and restore calm. Mubarak's loyalists call for a million-man march today to show ‘gratitude' to him as they asked Prime Minister Essam Sharaf to apologise to them as he did before with the protesters who were attacked in Al Tahrir Square. Mubarak is currently under arrest in a hospital in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh where he fled during the anti-regime protests that led to his overthrow on February 11. The military rulers who took over after Mubarak quit would like to move him eventually to the Tora prison in Cairo, where his sons Gamal and Alaa and several ex-regime officials are being jailed. Putting him on trial was a key demand of tens of thousands of protesters who staged mass demonstrations across Egypt last month.
