Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak flew to Cairo on Wednesday where he will be tried for conspiring to kill protesters, the first Arab ruler to be put in the dock since uprisings swept the region.
Speculation swirled in the hours before the trial about whether the 83-year-old, hospitalised in Sharm el-Sheikh on the Red Sea since April, would turn up in a court set up in the Police Academy in Cairo and with a cage for defendants.
“Mubarak has left Sharm el-Sheikh hospital,” Mohamed Naguib, head of security in South Sinai, told Reuters after a motorcade that included ambulances and security vehicles left the hospital in resort and headed for the local airport.
State television said his plane had left for Cairo.
Mubarak’s trial is unprecedented. He was driven from office by his people and they are holding him to account in a way that will send a stark message to other Arab rulers facing unrest
Tunisian President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, the first Arab leader to be ousted in the Arab Spring, was tried and sentenced to jail in absentia. He fled to Saudi Arabia. Iraq’s Saddam Hussein was ousted by U.S.-led forces and then tried.
Police patrolled the street near Mubarak’s hospital and barred the way to a small group of protesters outside, chanting: “The people want the execution of the killer.”
Outside the site of the court on the outskirts of Cairo, a screen was erected to show the trial. Pro- and anti-Mubarak faced off. Some in the two groups hurled stones at each other.
A small pro-Mubarak rally of men, women and children chanted: “Oh Mubarak hold your head high” and “We will demolish the prison and burn it down, if Hosni Mubarak is sentenced.” Nearby another group against Mubarak chanted: “Raise your voice, Freedom will not die.”
Security was tightened in Cairo’s Tahrir Square. Police and military officers in riot gear were deployed there, with dozens of police trucks and a few army armoured personnel vehicles.
Protesters had camped out in Tahrir for three weeks in July seeking a swifter trial for Mubarak and other reforms. They feared the ruling generals would use Mubarak’s illness as a ploy to avoid publicly humiliating the war veteran and ex-president who ran Egypt for 30 years until Feb. 11.
If convicted, Mubarak could face the death penalty. In his only public comments since stepping down, he vowed in April to clear his name and that of his family of accusations of corruption.
“If you feel sympathy for any dictator broken and standing in a cage, remember him when he was unjust on the throne,” Marian wrote on Twitter, using the website that became a tool in rallying the masses during the 18-day uprising against him.
