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Mubarak’s New Trial:How Egyptian Politics Will Weave Its Way Into It
Human rights advocates are cautiously welcoming a decision by Egypt’s
top appeals court to order a retrial for former President Hosni Mubarak
and other top officials over the killings of protesters during the
uprising that ejected him from power in 2011. The June 2, 2012 verdict
touched off a wave of huge marches with demonstrators once again seizing
control of Cairo’s Tahrir Square, dragging barricades into place within
moments of Judge Ahmed Rifaat’s announcement of the decision on live
television. Although the court gave Mubarak and former Interior Minister
Habib El Adly life sentences for failing to prevent protesters’ deaths,
demonstrators were angry that the three-judge panel had failed to
convict four top Interior Ministry officials widely seen as responsible
for the killings of protesters during the January 2011 uprising.
On Sunday the appeals court overturned that decision and ordered a
retrial in the case. A small crowd of Mubarak loyalists reportedly
celebrated the decision, but this time there were no major opposition
protests. Mubarak, now 84 and being held in a military hospital, remains
under investigation in a separate case, and will not go free.
A retrial in the case opens the possibility of staging a more credible
trial and bringing in new evidence, including information found in a
recently-completed report by a high-level fact-finding commission tasked
with investigating protesters’ deaths. Human Rights Watch’s Egypt
director Heba Morayef says the initial trial of Mubarak and his aides
had been both politicized and procedurally flawed. “There were clear
procedural violations and so that, in and of itself, for me, from a fair
trial perspective, means that that original sentence needed to be
overturned, on purely technical grounds,” she says.
Human rights advocates are cautiously welcoming a decision by Egypt’s
top appeals court to order a retrial for former President Hosni Mubarak
and other top officials over the killings of protesters during the
uprising that ejected him from power in 2011. The June 2, 2012 verdict
touched off a wave of huge marches with demonstrators once again seizing
control of Cairo’s Tahrir Square, dragging barricades into place within
moments of Judge Ahmed Rifaat’s announcement of the decision on live
television. Although the court gave Mubarak and former Interior Minister
Habib El Adly life sentences for failing to prevent protesters’ deaths,
demonstrators were angry that the three-judge panel had failed to
convict four top Interior Ministry officials widely seen as responsible
for the killings of protesters during the January 2011 uprising.
On Sunday the appeals court overturned that decision and ordered a
retrial in the case. A small crowd of Mubarak loyalists reportedly
celebrated the decision, but this time there were no major opposition
protests. Mubarak, now 84 and being held in a military hospital, remains
under investigation in a separate case, and will not go free.
A retrial in the case opens the possibility of staging a more credible
trial and bringing in new evidence, including information found in a
recently-completed report by a high-level fact-finding commission tasked
with investigating protesters’ deaths. Human Rights Watch’s Egypt
director Heba Morayef says the initial trial of Mubarak and his aides
had been both politicized and procedurally flawed. “There were clear
procedural violations and so that, in and of itself, for me, from a fair
trial perspective, means that that original sentence needed to be
overturned, on purely technical grounds,” she says.
Judge Rifaat’s June decision did not establish Mubarak’s personal
involvement in the deaths of protesters, and went further to say that
there no evidence that the police were involved, a finding many
Egyptians find hard to believe after witnessing the street fighting
between police and protesters during the uprising
Most shocking for rights activists, though, was the acquittal of the
four Interior Ministry officials, including Ahmed Ramzy, the former
commander of the riot police and Ismail Al-Shaer, the former head of
Cairo security. According to Morayef, Ramzy would have been
“operationally in charge” of the Central Security Forces during the
deadly police crackdown on Jan. 28, 2011. On that day, throngs of
demonstrators battled police across Egypt, ultimately pushing their way
into Tahrir Square and setting police stations on fire. At least 841
people were killed during the 18-day revolution against Mubarak’s
regime, and the 28th was its deadliest day.
Tareq ElKhatib, a lawyer whose brother was killed during the street battles near Tahrir Square on the 28th,
welcomed call for a retrial, saying he hoped that a trial with fresh
evidence would shed light on the chaotic events of the revolution. “This
was the best thing that happened in the whole recent period,” he said
of Sunday’s decision. ElKhatib was among a group of victims’ relatives
who submitted evidence to the committee appointed last year by President
Mohamed Morsi to
investigate the events of the uprising and subsequent unrest during the
year-and-a-half when Egypt was governed by the Supreme Council of the
Armed Forces. After months of work, that committee recently sent a
700-page report to the president for referral to prosecutors. The report
has not yet been made public, but some of its alleged contents have
been leaked, including the finding that Mubarak personally watched the
crackdown unfold on a live television feed in his palace.
Such evidence would be a crucial element of any new trial, as
prosecutors, activists, and judges say the Interior Ministry and the
General Intelligence Agency failed to cooperate with investigators in
the original investigation and trial of Mubarak. For example, documents
from the trial showed that
crucial surveillance camera footage from the Tahrir-adjacent Egyptian
Museum from the opening days of the revolt had been taped over by the
time intelligence officials handed it over to the prosecutors.
But given the complex balance of power within the Egyptian state
between the Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated president, the military, and
the Interior Ministry, it remains to be seen how aggressive Morsi will
be in confronting the other branches of government. “The overall
political will to have a real investigation, to have real
accountability, would involve strict orders from the presidency to the
Ministry of the Interior to back off and cooperate,” says Human Rights
Watch’s Heba Morayef.
Morsi’s administration, a facing a growing economic debacle and
reeling from a massive protest wave triggered by an attempted power grab
in November, is unlikely to pick a fight by launching tough
investigations into abuses by the military, and may also tread lightly
with the Interior Ministry. On the other hand, prosecuting police and
regime officials is popular with the public, and could help shore up
support among Egyptians still wary of him following November’s
centralization of power and the unrest it provoked. Such support will be
critical particularly following the passage in December of a
controversial new constitution drafted by the presidents’ allies, and
with a new parliamentary election slated for April.
The fate of the Mubarak case will also hinge on other factors,
including which judge from Egypt’s vast and politically diverse
judiciary is chosen to preside over the trial. The case against Mubarak
would presumably be overseen by top prosecutor Talaat Abdullah,
installed by Morsi in November after a standoff with a previous Mubarak
appointee; but Abdullah is facing protests from his own employees.
Prosecutors went on strike in late December over Abdullah’s appointment,
calling it an infringement on their independence.
Ultimately, the task of investigating, trying and convicting regime
officials, then, is bound up with the long, unfinished process of
reforming institutions, like the Interior Ministry and police, which
were shaped over three decades by Mubarak, and became the central
pillars of the authoritarian state he oversaw. “Overall, the problem is a
lot of it depends on your reading of the political situation at the
moment and the extent to which the Morsi government will want to see
serious accountability or will want to pick and choose,” Morayef says.
“I can tell you that related to the fact-finding committee that we’re
definitely not going to see accountability for military abuses, which
was part of that fact-finding committee report. It’s just not going to
happen.”
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