By
Hamza Hendawi
 |
|
Ousted
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, sits in the defendants cage behind protective
glass, during a court hearing in Cairo, Egypt, Wednesday, May 21, 2014. |
ASSOCIATED PRESS
|
CAIRO
(AP) -- A judge dismissed murder charges Saturday against former President
Hosni Mubarak and acquitted his security chief over the killing of protesters
during Egypt's 2011 uprising, crushing any hope of a judicial reckoning on
behalf of the hundreds victims of the revolt that toppled him.
Yet
instead of outrage, a largely muted initial reaction greeted the decision in an
Egypt where unlicensed protests draw stiff prison terms and many remain fearful
over their security four years after the nation's Arab Spring revolt.
Some
2,000 young people protested the verdict near Cairo's Tahrir Square, the
birthplace of the 2011 uprising closed off Saturday by soldiers and police,
though open a day earlier despite widespread fears of violent Islamist
protests. They chanted against the military, whose former chief, Abdel-Fattah
el-Sissi, is now the president.
"The
people want to bring down the regime!" they shouted, using one of the
chief slogans in the 18-day, anti-Mubarak uprising.
In
the evening, police broke up the gathering, firing water cannon and tear gas
and driving protesters into side streets after supporters of the banned Muslim
Brotherhood joined the protest. An Interior Ministry statement said that Brotherhood
supporters pelted security forces with rocks and fought with the protesters.
Security
officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized
to brief reporters, said police arrested 29 people.
That
contrasted with the jubilant well-wishers who greeted Mubarak after the
decision when he returned to his temporary home at a Nile-side military
hospital. He later triumphantly waved back to supporters from his hospital
window.
A
television interviewer reached him by telephone, asking whether he had ordered
the killing.
"I
did not do anything at all," replied Mubarak, who was convicted and
sentenced to life in prison in 2012 on charges related to the killing of
protesters. The verdict was overturned on appeal the following year.
The
monarch of close U.S. ally Bahrain, King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, also called
to congratulate Mubarak, according to the official news agency of the Gulf Arab
island nation.
Mubarak,
who assumed Egypt's highest office in 1981 following the assassination of Anwar
Sadat, has spent virtually all the time since he was detained in April 2011 in
hospitals due to poor health. On Saturday, he came to the courtroom on a
gurney, wearing dark glasses, a navy blue tie and a matching cardigan.
In
his ruling, judge Mahmoud al-Rashidi cited the "inadmissibility" of
the case against Mubarak due to a technicality. He said Mubarak's May 2011
referral to trial by prosecutors ignored the "implicit" decision that
no criminal charges be filed against him when his security chief and six of his
top aides were referred to trial by the same prosecutors two months earlier.
After
the decision, Cairo resident Nermine Fathy simply asked: "Who killed the
martyrs? I want to know who killed the martyrs."
That
question likely won't be answered in Egypt's courts. Already, nearly 170 police
officers and security officials put on trial in connection to the killings have
either been acquitted for lack of evidence or were found to have acted in
self-defense. Some received short, suspended sentences.
The
Mubarak trial, however, was concerned only with the killing of 239 protesters
whose names were cited in charge documents, not the nearly 900 killed in total
during the 18 days of the revolt.
Saturday's
ruling marks another major setback for the young activists who led the 2011
Egyptian uprising, many of whom are now in prison or have withdrawn from
politics. It likely will reinforce the perception that Mubarak's autocratic
state remains in place, albeit led by el-Sissi, the former military chief who
later led the overthrow of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi in 2013.
It
concludes Mubarak's retrial along with his two sons, his security chief Habib
el-Adly and six top security commanders, who were all acquitted. Also acquitted
was wealthy businessman Hussein Salem, a longtime Mubarak friend tried in
absentia.
Hossam
Bahgat, a prominent human rights advocate, said Saturday's verdict would be
used by the government to signal the end of the upheavals associated with the
2011 revolt.
"The
regime's message: It's time to look forward, time to move on, time to focus on
building the nation. But I doubt this will work. It will deepen the grievance
and feeling of injustice felt by many young people," he said by telephone
from New York.
Mubarak
also was acquitted of corruption charges that he faced along with his sons Alaa
and Gamal -- his one-time heir apparent -- over the statute of limitations in
the case running out. The case involves their purchase from Salem of luxury
villas in a Red Sea resort at a vastly discounted price, something that the
prosecution had said amounted to bribery. The two sons face a separate trial on
charges of insider trading.
All
the rulings can be appealed.
It
was not immediately clear whether Mubarak would now walk free since he is
serving a three-year jail term for separate corruption charges he was convicted
of in May. He has been in detention since April 2011, but it is unclear if the
past 3 1/2 years will be treated as time served.
Al-Rashidi,
the judge, said the dismissal of the charges did not absolve Mubarak of the
corruption and "feebleness" of the latter years of his 29-year rule.
The judge praised the 2011 uprising, saying that its goals -- freedom, bread
and social justice -- were legitimate.
He
also said Mubarak, like any other human, erred at times and suggested that his
old age should have spared him a criminal trial.
"To
rule for or against him after he has become old will be left to history and the
Judge of Judges, ... (God), who will question him about his rule," the
judge said.
Associated
Press writers Sarah El Deeb and Merrit Kennedy contributed to this report.
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