Peter Beaumont in Cairo
theguardian.com, Monday 26 August 2013
Twin judicial processes are a metaphor for where Egypt has arrived under its new military-backed interim government
Hosni Mubarak attends court on the first day of his retrial over alleged complicity in the killing of protesters. Photograph: EPA
It was billed as the "trial of the two regimes". In one courtroom, at the police academy in New Cairo on the sprawling capital's eastern outskirts, the case on Sunday was against the country's former president, Hosni Mubarak, who was released from prison last week.
In another Cairo court, the defendants were Mubarak's bitter foes, the leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood, who were themselves pushed from office in a coup last month.
Mubarak was on trial for his involvement in the killings of some 900 protesters during the country's 18-day revolution in 2011 after an initial guilty verdict was quashed in January for 'procedural irregularities.'
The most serious accusation against the Muslim Brotherhood's spiritual leader, Mohammed Badie and 32 others was the same charge: incitement to kill protesters.
The twin judicial processes are a metaphor for where Egypt has arrived under its new military backed interim government, where the real power resides with the military and the chief of the armed forces Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi. It is a place where the courts – and the judicial process – appear to be as much about politics as they are about the law.
In an apparent sign of confidence, the army this weekend relaxed a night-time curfew and a government-appointed legal panel presented the first draft of a proposed constitutional amendment which would scrap last year's Islamic additions to the constitution and revive a Mubarak-era voting system.
A spokesman for interim President Adly Mansour said Egypt had undergone difficulties in the past two months, but had reached a "safe area".
"Those who tried and are still trying to break the Egyptian army will fall alongside the Tatars and Crusaders and all other enemies in the same dustbin," said Ahmed el-Meslemani.
Sunday's hearings came amid a flurry of new cases against activists and political figures. But if there was a lesson from the two inconclusive proceedings, it was who the interim government regards as its main threat, revealed, perhaps, in which defendants were brought to court and which ones were not produced.
At the police academy a white-clad Mubarak, who left prison on Thursday after judges ordered his release to house arrest, was very much in evidence, sitting in a wheelchair and sporting sunglasses.
The 85-year-old, whose lawyers have at times claimed he was on the verge of death, was delivered to the court by helicopter from the Maadi Military Hospital where he is presently under house arrest. Flanking him in the dock the former Interior minister, Habib al-Adly – also convicted for complicity in the killing of protesters – and Mubarak's two sons, Gamal and Alaa, who are being tried in a separate corruption-related case.
Roads leading to the court were blocked off by security forces over fear of demonstrations against Mubarak's release which saw the country's interim prime minister, Hazem el-Beblawi, on Saturday compelled to insist in a statement that the release of the former president, who ruled Egypt for three decades, was not a return to the country's old political order.
Further raising the stakes in a country ever more bitterly divided, the defendants' lawyers demanded that General Sisi, the effective power in Egypt today, be called to testify as he was head of military intelligence at the time of the killings.
Badie, and his deputies, Khairat-al Shater and Rashad Bayoumi, were not in court with judicial sources citing security reasons for their absence.
Although Mubarak and his co-accused have appeared in court on numerous occasions, the hearing against Badie and 32 other Brotherhood figures – some of them still in hiding – is the first to be held involving members of the organisation since President Mohamed Morsi was deposed on 3 July in a military backed coup. It comes amid continuing crackdown on members of the Muslim Brotherhood and arrests of senior figures following weeks of unrest that followed Morsi's removal, including the violent break up of pro-Brotherhood sit-ins that led to hundreds of deaths.
Charges against Badie and his aides include incitement to violence and relate to an anti-Brotherhood protest outside the group's Cairo headquarters on 30 June in which nine people were killed and 91 wounded. The group said the police encouraged "thugs" to attack the building while security officials at the time said that the group placed snipers on top of the building. Dozens of Brotherhood members were trapped inside the building for hours and it was eventually set on fire.
The military toppled Morsi three days later, then launched a massive crackdown on the Islamist movement, arresting top leaders including Shater and Bayoumi, and shut down Islamic TV networks.
Authorities have alleged that Morsi supporters are committing acts of terrorism and point to a string of attacks against churches and government buildings.
Morsi's supporters deny their protests are violent or that they attack churches, accusing authorities of smearing their movement. Both cases were adjourned.
