Dictator caged

Video image showing former President Hosni Mubarak, 83, lying on a bed inside a cage in a Cairo courtroom on August 3 as his historic trial, on charges of corruption and ordering the killing of protesters during the uprising in February, began. - AP

Many people see the public trial of ousted President Hosni Mubarak as a giant step in the Arab world towards instituting the rule of law.

THE trial of 83-year-old Hosni Mubarak, the ousted Egyptian President, has been an unprecedented event in the annals of contemporary Arab politics. It is for the first time that an authoritarian ruler has been put on trial at the behest of his own people for alleged misdeeds. Arab street views the trial of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein as a show trial organised under American supervision. But Mubarak's trial happened because of pressure from grass-roots groups that staged the revolution earlier in the year. For six months since he was forced to quit, Mubarak was under house arrest in his residence in the resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh, far away from Cairo, his former seat of power.

Thousands of people had once again started to congregate in Tahrir Square demanding the speedy trials of all those responsible for the widespread corruption and brutality that characterised Mubarak's rule of 30 years. More than 900 people were killed in the 18-day uprising that shook Egypt in February.

There were also allegations that the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, which stepped into the political vacuum left by the fall of the Mubarak government, was seeking to shield the former President and his family members. The trial of the former strongman was repeatedly postponed on the grounds of his poor health. That Mubarak was ill was plain for all to see when he was brought on a stretcher to a makeshift courtroom in the Police Academy in Cairo in early August.

Decisive moment'

Egyptians never expected to see their former President in simple prison garb along with his two sons, Gamal and Alaa, in a cage and being tried in the full glare of television cameras. In Egypt, defendants in criminal trials are placed in cages with iron bars.

It is a decisive moment in the history of the Egyptian people to see this ousted President behind the prosecution cage after seeing him portrayed as a divine figure on television for decades, said Mahmoud el-Khodairy, a former judge and an outspoken critic of the Mubarak regime.

Others facing trial in the same court were Hussein Salem, a close business associate of Mubarak, and Habib el-Adly, the former Interior Minister.

But the judicial system that is trying Mubarak was once part of the political system that he lorded over for more than three decades. The three judges on the panel presiding over the trial are all Mubarak appointees. Only a few corruption charges and his conduct during the revolution will come under the purview of the trial, not all the crimes and misdemeanours conducted during his long reign.

The three specific charges under which he is being tried relate to the killing of demonstrators during the countrywide upsurge against his government earlier in the year. The other two relate to profiteering by abusing his position of power and exporting Egyptian gas to Israel at rates below that prevailing in the international market. If found guilty, the former President will have to face a minimum of five years in prison. The maximum penalty is death.

The former Interior Minister also faces similar charges. The charges against the others relate mainly to financial impropriety, which invites five to 15 years in prison. With the military council ruling Egypt today deciding to charge Mubarak and his close circle of defrauding the public, it has justified the former President's ouster.

Treason law

On July 21, Prime Minister Essam Sharaf introduced an amendment to the Ghadr (treason) law brought in after the 1952 July Revolution led by Gamal Abdel Nasser. It is not enough to see Mubarak's henchmen and senior officials stand trial on criminal charges. They must also answer allegations of political corruption, including rigging parliamentary elections and paving the way for the former President's son Gamal to inherit power from his father, said Sharaf. Changes to the treason law will help us get rid of those who manipulated political life under Mubarak.

If the amendment is passed, most of Mubarak's close associates and the top leadership of the former ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) can be booked under the treason law. Mohamed Heikal, the doyen of Egyptian journalism and a close associate of Nasser, said that it was not enough to prosecute Mubarak for illegal profiteering and the ordering of the killing of peaceful protesters.

Mubarak must be prosecuted for political corruption as well, for disrupting the republican nature of Egypt and preparing the country for a father-son succession scenario. Mubarak gave the green light to the security forces and NDP officials to rig the elections, tinker with the Constitution and manipulate the state-run media in favour of his son, he said.

However, many opposition parties want the treason law to be annulled. They describe the law as being fundamentally anti-democratic. The law returns us to an age when the army dictated exceptional laws without the approval of an elected parliament, said Ayman Noor, who challenged Mubarak in the last presidential election and was later sent to jail on trumped-up charges.

It would be far better to amend the law on the sovereignty of the judiciary to give ordinary courts greater power in trying officials involved in corrupting political life, said Noor. He is planning to contest the presidential election again.

Mohamed Saad al-Katani, the secretary-general of the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party, described the trial as a victory for post-revolution Egypt. The presence of Mubarak on a bed inside the dock is a message from the ruling military council that no one is above the law, he told the Egyptian media.

Most of the senior leadership in the Brotherhood are openly in support of the military council. Their party is expected to emerge as the single biggest group in parliament in the elections that are slated to be held later in the year.

The secular opposition along with smaller Islamist parties want a new Constitution to be in place before the elections. But the army, which seems to have struck a tacit alliance with the Brotherhood, wants the new Constitution to be drafted only after the election of a new parliament.

Student and youth groups which spearheaded the revolt in Tahrir Square are angry with the new developments. They feel that Mubarak's trial will be a show trial and that the military will go on dominating the country with the help of its new-found allies. They also fear that the new Constitution proposed to be drafted will be more Sharia-oriented.

In fact, the military council was also appointed by Mubarak. Protest leaders have been saying that many of their compatriots are held in military prisons and subjected to speedy trials by military courts, while trials of the officials arrested on graft charges are proceeding at a glacial pace.

Most of the senior police officers who ordered snipers to shoot at protesters and were responsible for other atrocities have still not been brought to trial. But activists criticising the army have been put on trial. For instance, Maikel Nabil, a blogger, was sentenced to three years in prison for insulting the military.

Rising protests

In recent weeks, protest groups all over Egypt have been demanding the dismissal of the caretaker government appointed by the military council and the replacement of the military council itself by a civilian council until the elections later this year. New banners unfurled at Tahrir Square in August called for serious purging and serious judging. There also has been a growing demand for a purging of all the remnants of the previous regime in the judiciary and the media.

When chief judge Ahmad Rifaat read out the charges against him, Mubarak responded by simply stating that he completely denied all the accusations. The trial of Mubarak was adjourned until August 15.

An Egyptian human rights activist, Nasser Amin, told the newspaper Al-Ahram that the public trial of Mubarak opened a new chapter in Egyptian politics and was a giant step in the Arab world towards instituting the rule of law. The unfolding drama is being watched with great interest all over the Arab world, which continues to be in the throes of ferment.