CAIRO: Ousted president Hosni Mubarak will stand trial on Aug. 3 along with his two sons Alaa and Gamal and businessman Hussein Salem, the Cairo Cassation Court said on Tuesday.
The four were referred to the North Cairo Criminal Court, but the location of the trial is yet to be announced. Reports suggested that the trial might be in Sharm El-Sheikh; Mubarak has been remanded in custody at the Sharm El-Sheikh Hospital.
The case was initially assigned to Judge Adel Abdel Salam Gomaa before he apologized that he won’t be able to handle it because he was busy with other cases. It was then assigned to Judge Ahmed Raafat, head of the fifth constituency of the North Cairo Criminal Court.
Gomaa was subject to criticism for issuing controversial rulings in prominent cases in which opposing political figures were involved, including Head of Al-Ghad Party Ayman Nour, Muslim Brotherhood leader Khairat Al-Shater and outspoken political activist and scholar Saad Eddin Ibrahim. Observes at the time said the charges were trumped up.
Mubarak was charged with premeditated and attempted murder. He was accused of cooperating with former interior minister Habib El-Adly and senior police officials to deliberately kill protestors who were demanding the overthrow of the regime.
He faces other charges of accepting gifts as the president, namely a palace and four villas in Sharm El-Sheikh worth LE 40 million, in return for symbolic amounts of money to facilitate businessman Salem’s ownership of millions of meters of state-owned land in South Sinai.
Mubarak was also allegedly involved with former petroleum minister Sameh Fahmy and Salem in enabling the latter to make over $2 billion in profits by allowing his company to export gas to Israel illegally at prices lower than production costs. This resulted in losses for the state estimated at $714 million, which mark the difference between the price of gas exported to Israel and international prices.
A medical committee assigned to examine Mubarak said that he is suffering from cardiac problems and a general state of “weakness, depression and muscular feebleness” and needs help getting out of bed.
It recommended in its report that Mubarak not be transferred outside the hospital, saying that Tora prison wasn’t equipped to receive a patient in critical or unstable situation.
