Ex-president Hosni Mubarak came out well from his third appearance at trial without being implicated by witnesses in firing at protesters during the revolt against him, Egyptian media media said on Tuesday. “The prosecution witnesses turned into defence witnesses,” ran the front-page headline of independent daily Al-Shorouk, deeming the hearing “a battering for the victims’ families”.
The Al-Tahrir newspaper, borne of the January and February revolution that toppled the president, said “the Mubarak trial surprises have started”. It noted that the main witness, the head of riot police communication services General Hussein Mussa, “vindicated” Mubarak and his interior minister Habib al-Adli. Instead, it said, Mussa offered the court a second-rate “scapegoat” in the form of defendant General Ahmed Ramzi, the former head of anti-riot forces.
Mussa was incorrectly identified as Mursi by state television on Monday. The state-run Al-Akhbar questioned whether the police officers called to the bar were “false witnesses”. The daily pointed out that lawyers had called for the appearance of Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, head of the armed forces and the de facto head of state. Tantawi was Mubarak’s defence minister for 20 years.
The next hearing of the high-profile trial has been fixed for Wednesday.