Wednesday, August 03, 2011 – Egypt’s former president Hosni Mubarak’s trial is due to start in the capital Cairo. He was forced from office by mass demonstrations in February, is going to face
Previously, Mr. Mubarak was under treatment for a heart condition in Sharm el-Sheikh hospital.
He is charged with corruption and ordering the killing of protesters – a charge that carries the death penalty.
According to sources, Mubarak’s sons Alaa and Gamal, ex-Interior Minister Habib al-Adly and six former other officials will also face court.
Some 3,000 soldiers and police have been drafted in to maintain order at Cairo’s police academy for the trial.
Mr. Mubarak’s trial was originally going to be held in a Cairo convention centre but the authorities moved the venue to a temporary courtroom set up inside the academy because of security concerns.
His trial proceedings is going to done in the presence of an estimated 600 people and authorities have built a cage for the defendants.
Since April, Mr. Mubarak has been under arrest at the hospital in the coastal resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh.
According to reports, he left that hospital early on Wednesday morning in a motorcade of ambulances and security vehicles to take a flight to Cairo.
The former Egyptian leader resigned on 11 February, after 18 days of protests in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, in which some 850 people were killed.
Meanwhile, Mr. Mubarak’s lawyer insists the former president is seriously ill.
According to BBC’s Jon Leyne in Cairo, many Egyptians are sceptical about this and believe the military does not want to see the former president humiliated.
BBC’s Jon Leyne in Cairo further adds, one compromise could be to keep the former president in the hospital wing of the academy, and try him there rather than in the cage in the courtroom – but this could trigger street protests.
It is a very tense moment for Egypt, and if Mr Mubarak does not appear in court there could be serious confrontations on the streets.
One of the protestor named Nariman Yousseff told the BBC, “I don’t think anyone has any illusions at the moment that the trial would actually be a real, fair trial.”
“We’re all waiting to see what’s going to happen, how they’re going to get out of it, because it’s been pretty clear and it’s become even clearer in the last few days that… the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, who are in charge at the moment, do not really have any intention of fulfilling the revolution’s demands.”
There have been renewed sit-in protests in Tahrir Square over the past month, due to the slow pace of change in the country.
They call for speedier trial for former regime officials.
Police backed by army troops moved in to clear the last few protesters from square on Monday and Tuesday.
In the meantime, the former interior minister, who is going on trial with Mr Mubarak on Wednesday, was sentenced to 12 years in jail in May for money-laundering and profiteering.
