Egypt panel implicates Mubarak, military in deaths

An Egyptian fact-finding mission determined that Hosni Mubarak watched the uprising against him unfold through a live TV feed at his palace, despite his later denial that he knew the extent of the protests and crackdown against them, a member of the mission said Wednesday.

The mission's findings increase pressure for a retrial of the 84-year old ousted president, who is already serving a life sentence for the deaths of 900 protesters. But its report could hold both political gains and dangers for his successor, Mohamed Morsi. A new prosecution of Mubarak would be popular, since many Egyptians were angered that he was convicted only for failing to stop the killing of protesters, rather than for ordering the crackdown.

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But the report also implicates the military and security officials in protester deaths. Any move to prosecute them could spark a backlash from powerful generals and others who still hold positions under Morsi's government.

Rights activists said they would watch carefully how aggressively Morsi pursues the evidence, detailed by a fact-finding mission he commissioned.

Morsi at Mubarak's former headquarters (Photo: Egyptian Persidency)

"This report should be part of the democratic transformation of Egypt and restructuring of security agencies," Ahmed Ragheb, a member of the commission and a rights lawyer, told The Associated Press. "At the end of the day, there will be no national reconciliation without revealing the truth, and ensuring accountability."

Morsi, an Islamist from the Muslim Brotherhood, asked the commission to send the report to the chief prosecutor Talaat Abdullah to investigate new evidence, his office said Wednesday.

Morsi recently appointed Abdullah to replace a Mubarak holdover who many considered an obstacle to strongly prosecuting former regime officials. Some judges criticized the appointment as a political move to continue to wield leverage over the prosecutor post.

The case will be a test whether Abdullah will conduct a thorough process of holding officials responsible. Some rights activists were already disappointed that Morsi didn't empower the fact-finding commission itself to turn the investigations into prosecutions and avoid political influence.

The 700-page report on protester deaths the past two years was submitted Wednesday to Morsi by the commission, made up of judges, rights lawyers, and representatives from the Interior Ministry and the intelligence, as well as families of victims.

Morsi formed the commission soon after coming to office in June as Egypt's first freely elected president after campaign promises to order retrials of former regime figures if new evidence was revealed.

Clashes were closely monitored

One key new finding by the commission was that Mubarak closely monitored the crackdown.

Ragheb said state TV had designated an encrypted satellite TV station that fed live material from cameras installed in and around Tahrir Square directly to Mubarak's palace throughout clashes between protesters and security forces.

Protesters called for death penalty for Mubarak (Photo: MCT)  

"Mubarak knew of all the crimes that took place directly. The images were carried to him live, and he didn't even need security reports," said Ragheb. "This entails a legal responsibility" in the violence against the protesters, including the infamous Camel Battle, where men on horses and camel and other Mubarak supporters stormed Tahrir.

At least 11 people are said to have been killed in that attack, and some 25 former ruling party members tried in the case were acquitted.

In questioning for his trial, Mubarak said he was kept in the dark by top aides as to the gravity of the situation, and fended off charges that he ordered or knew of the deadly force.

Khaled Abu Bakr, another lawyer who represented some of the victims in the uprising, said a retrial could "add more jail time if new charges appeared, and it could also change the penalty from life sentence to the death penalty."

More politically explosive is the commission's look at the 17 months of military rule after Mubarak's fall, when activists protesting the generals' conduct of the transition clashed repeated with security forces in violence that killed at least 100 protesters.

The report clearly established that security officials and the military used live ammunition against protesters during the transition and the anti-Mubarak uprising, Ragheb said.

The military repeatedly denied firing live ammunition, despite several protesters killed by bullets and pellets and despite reports by rights groups holding the army responsible.

The report established that at least one of nearly 70 missing since the uprising was tortured and died in a military prison, said Ragheb. It also details abuse by military and security officers in the days following Mubarak's ouster, including the beating and abusing of women protesters and the conducting of "virginity tests" to intimidate and humiliate them.

Ragheb refused to give further specifics. The report was not made public. But he told Al-Masry Al-Youm daily that it recommends summoning hundreds for questioning in protester killings.

Several rights activists raised concerns that findings implicating any military officials or security figures in the current Interior Ministry will be ignored.

"There is every reason for Morsi and the prosecutor general he appointed to act on the findings and make sure they are translated into prompt prosecution," said Hossam Bahgat, a human rights lawyer from the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights.

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