CAIRO (Update 4) - A senior police witness in the trial of Hosni Mubarak said on Monday he was not aware of any order to open fire on protesters who ousted the former Egyptian president. Mubarak, 83, is accused of involvement in killing protesters and "inciting" some officers to use live ammunition to fire at them. About 850 people died in the protests that erupted on Jan. 25 and ended Mubarak's three decades in office on Feb. 11. "In my 30 years of experience with state security, I have not heard of any incident where an order was given to use live ammunition against protesters," police officer General Hussein Saeed Mohamed Mursi, 54, told the court, according to a Reuters correspondent. Mursi, head of communication in the state security service, was in the police operations room during the uprising. In its report on Mursi's testimony, state television said Mursi denied police could have fired on protesters. "The first witness denied the possibility of using automatic weapons against the protesters," it reported in a headline. A state television reporter also said the prosecution questioned Mursi, saying that in previous statements he had said he had been aware of orders from former Interior Minister Habib al-Adli to use weapons to disperse protesters in front of the Interior Ministry, prisons and police stations. Live television cameras have been barred from the court for the third session after the first two sessions in August were broadcast on live television. Mursi described events on Jan. 28, one of the most violent days, when he said police were ordered to prevent protesters from reaching Tahrir Square, the centre of the protests. "The orders were to deal with the protesters as the situation mandated and the freedom was left to them to deal with protesters in a manner that they saw fit," Mursi said. He said he overheard a conversation between top officers in the operations room, including those standing trial with Mubarak, saying they did not have reinforcements to protect jails and the Interior Ministry, prompting the officers to release weapons and ammunition. The ammunition and weapons were transferred in ambulances because police vehicles were targetted, Mursi told the court. Adli, Mubarak's interior minister for years, is standing trial with the former president. Also on trial are Mubarak's two sons and other police officers. Many police stations were stormed and burned down during the height of the violence in the 18-day uprising that ended when Mubarak left office on Feb. 11. Many police vehicles were attacked, overturned and torched.
