(AFP Photo)
Former president Hosni Mubarak said Egyptians should stand behind President Mohamed Morsi, said the ouster leader’s lawyer Farid Al-Deeb.
Al-Deeb, who claimed that he regularly visits Mubarak at Tora Prison’s hospital, said that the former president has access to a television set and regularly reads newspapers and continues to follow the country’s developing post-revolution political sphere.
“He is sad and upset,” said Al-Deeb during an interview on Al-Tahrir television channel. “He said: ‘I call on the people to rally behind President Morsi,’” Mubarak’s lawyer added.
Mubarak also called on Egyptians to stop vandalising public and private property, saying that those who participate in such actions are “thugs” and cannot be “revolutionaries”, claimed Al-Deeb.
The prominent lawyer also strongly condemned police brutality during demonstrations across the country, expressing concern that the military was being used as a means to enforce security among civilians.
“It is not the Armed Forces’ task to maintain security,” said Al-Deeb, adding that it was its job to protect the country’s borders and deal with the large external forces that affect the nation.
Mubarak’s lawyer also spoke well of current Prosecutor General Tala’at Abdallah, calling him fair, pointing to permission for Mubarak’s temporary transfer to the military hospital in Maadi when his health deteriorated. This contrasts with difficulties the former president had under the previous prosecutor general.
Mubarak’s retrial is scheduled to begin 13 April. He will be tried with former interior minister Habib Al-Adly and six aides for involvement in killing of protesters. The 84-year-old former president was originally given a life sentence for failure to prevent the deaths and has spent most of his post-revolution days in the military and Tora Prison hospitals.
