Hosni Mubarak: from detention to where?

Hosni Mubarak: from detention to where?


A Tahrir Square protester calls for the former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak to be prosecuted. Photograph
On Tuesday, the Egyptian ex-president Hosni Mubarak – who has been confined to a luxury villa in Sharm el-Sheikh since he was ousted – allegedly suffered a heart attack just as he was about to be questioned by prosecutors. Despite that, he is now to be detained for 15 days. Meanwhile his sons, including his former presidential heir, Gamal, have been held for questioning in Cairo by the wonderfully named Illicit Gains Authority.


Hosni Mubarak's sons detained as Egypt's search for justice begins
A policeman stands guard outside the Sharm el-Sheikh hospital where Hosni Mubarak is being treated for a heart attack.



The barbed wire fences and forbidding high walls became a horrifyingly familiar sight to those who dared speak out over the past three decades; for many of the thousands who passed through Cairo's Tora prison complex and were tortured within it, this notorious jail was the ultimate symbol of Hosni Mubarak's Egypt.
On Wednesday, as it has done so many times before, Tora received two more prisoners accused of crimes against the state. Their names were Gamal and Alaa Mubarak, sons of the ousted president, and they arrived in the early hours, handcuffed and clad in standard-issue white jumpsuits.
Egypt's remarkable revolution has boasted many poignant moments, but the sight of the all-powerful Mubarak family being led into the top-security cells which once housed their political opponents will count among the most memorable.

The incarceration of the Mubarak brothers came as their father, the western-backed dictator whose grip over Egypt seemed only a few months ago to be impregnable, was formally placed in detention at his hospital bed in Sharm el-Sheikh, under suspicion of corruption, fraud and ordering the killing of peaceful protesters. Egyptians have become accustomed to old realities being turned upside down, but as celebrations erupted over the arrest of this former political giant of the Middle East, questions were being raised about what comes next, and how the arrest will affect the volatile landscape of Egyptian politics as the nation shudders towards democracy.
Investigators have 15 days to question the 82-year-old and his sons, before prosecutors decide whether to bring charges and force the Mubarak family into the dock. A number of former Mubarak ministers and officials have been through the same process, and in every case a 15-day detention order has been the prelude to the suspect being remanded in custody prior to a formal trial.
"I seriously doubt that after all this the Mubaraks will be released," said Ragia Omran, a human rights lawyer and pro-change activist. "There's been a lot of anger in the Egyptian street over the demands of the revolution not being met, and the ruling generals have arrested the Mubaraks in an effort to calm the people. To let them go now would be political suicide."
The three men are all due for questioning on Thursday at the prosecutor's office in Cairo's Fifth Settlement suburb, though a medical committee will assess Hosni Mubarak first to determine whether he is fit to travel following a reported heart attack. If deemed well enough, the former leader is expected to be transferred to a secure medical facility in the capital.
Interrogations are likely to focus on the origin and whereabouts of the Mubarak family's vast wealth, which has been estimated at anything between $1bn and a wildly improbable $700bn. Last week a document emerged from the office of Egypt's prosecutor general entitled "request for judicial assistance", which detailed a series of accusations against the Mubaraks regarding their alleged embezzlement of public money – claims denied by Hosni Mubarak during a TV statement aired on Sunday. The US and other countries have agreed to try to track and freeze Mubarak family assets but legal experts are sceptical of their chances, particularly because of the length of time that elapsed between the president being toppled and Egypt's interim government formally requesting an asset freeze.
Mubarak and his sons will also have to answer questions regarding the violence meted out by the state against unarmed protesters during Egypt's 18-day uprising, which left up to 800 dead and thousands more injured. Mubarak's former interior minister, Habib al-Adly, is already on trial for ordering the shooting of civilians during demonstrations, a charge he denies.
The arrest of Mubarak has been a key demand of protesters since his fall two months ago. Simmering tensions between revolutionaries and the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, a military body that has in effect been ruling Egypt by decree until elections are held later this year