CAIRO: The Prosecutor General on Thursday mulled sending Hosni Mubarak to jail or to a prison hospital as reports emerged the ousted president’s health is "unstable".
Egypt’s public prosecutor Abdel Magid Mahmoud has ordered a medical team to head to Sharm El-Sheikh where Mubarak is under arrest in hospital to "establish his latest health condition and the possibility of having him transferred to Tora prison or to the prison hospital," his office said.
The prosecutor has also ordered that preparations be made at the hospital in Tora Prison, in Cairo’s south.
The medical team will head to Tora prison hospital "to evaluate the facilities and equipment and make the necessary preparations to have former president Hosni Mubarak moved there based on his medical condition," it said.
Soon after the prosecutor’s statement, Egypt’s state news agency MENA reported that Mukarak’s health is "unstable."
Mubarak, 82, "is in suite 309 and his health is unstable," a medical source in Sharm El-Sheikh was quoted as saying by MENA.
Mubarak, who quit Feb. 11, is being held in connection with violence against protesters during 18 days of anti-regime rallies that ended his 30-year grip on power. He is also being questioned on corruption charges.
His two sons, Alaa and Gamal and several of his ministers and senior aides, are also being held in the Tora prison complex on various charges as part of a sweeping probe into corruption and abuse.
The public funds prosecution’s latest investigations showed that Mubarak and his family own 40 villas and palaces inside Egypt and bank accounts worth millions of dollars, according to independent daily Al-Masry Al-Youm.
State-run daily Al-Ahram reported that illicit gains committee ordered former presidential chief of staff Zakariya Azmy to 15 days of in prison pending investigations, accusing him of owning land and properties worth LE 10 billion, through of profiteering.
Independent daily Al-Shourok quoted a judicial source saying that Mubarak and his son Gamal will be soon questioned about their involvement in "the Battle of Camels" in which 12 protesters were killed in Tahrir on Feb. 2-3.
The same source said that Mubarak and his son are on top of a list of 20 involved in inciting thugs to kill the protesters on Feb. 2, including former parliament speaker Fathi Sorour.
Sorour said during investigations, according to state-run daily Al-Akhbar, that Muabark and his men made fun of the victims of this battle in a formal meeting.
An official fact finding mission said on Tuesday that Mubarak was complicit in shootings of anti-regime protesters as he tried to face down the popular revolt.
Judge Omar Marwan, the mission’s secretary general, was speaking at a news conference after the release of its report’s summary, which said 846 civilians died in the protests that led to Mubarak’s ouster.
Twenty-six policemen were also killed in the unrest, the report said, adding that police used excessive force against demonstrators and shot at people trying to film the events from balconies and windows.
"What is confirmed is that Mubarak’s permission (to use live fire on protesters) must be obtained. The shooting lasted for several days, and he did not hold accountable those who fired live rounds," Marwan said.
"That confirms his involvement in responsibility," he said.
Mubarak was last week remanded to 15 days’ preventive custody in a hospital room. He was hospitalized last week after a heart attack.
His former interior minister Habib El-Adly is on trial for the shootings, while his former intelligence chief Omar Suleiman, who was briefly vice president in his last days in office, was grilled Tuesday in connection with violence against demonstrators.
The mission’s report found that most of the dead had been shot in the head and chest, which indicated the use of snipers.
"If (the bullets) did not kill the victims, they maimed their faces and destroyed eyes," the report said, adding that hospitals reported "a large number of eye injuries" from gunshots.
The perception that Gamal, a 47-year-old former investment banker was widely seen as his father’s heir to the presidency, as well as a flawed parliamentary election in November 2010 that left Mubarak’s National Democratic Party with more than 90 percent of seats, spurred the nationwide protests that ended the strongman’s three decades in power, the mission said in its report. –Additional reporting by Daily News Egypt.
