Hosni Mubarak retrial verdict due

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/26/hosni-mubarak-retrial-verdict-due

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Hosni Mubarak, the dictator unseated by Egypt’s 2011 uprising, faces another day of reckoning on Saturday, when a court is due to announce a verdict in his retrial on charges related to corruption and the killing of protesters.

Mubarak was initially sentenced to life in prison in June 2012, sparking scenes of jubilation in a country still pulsing with revolutionary fervour. He was, however, granted a retrial in January 2013, and its conclusion nearly two years on may bring neither the same result, nor carry the same symbolism or inspire the same groundswell of emotion.

Some of the case’s key witnesses have watered down their evidence, including the veteran newspaper editor Ibrahim Eissa. Jailed under Mubarak, Eissa was once a fierce critic of the Egyptian establishment, and in Mubarak’s original trial he accused police of shooting demonstrators during the 2011 uprising.

Lately, however, he has aligned himself with the regime, and in the retrial he denied witnessing the death of protesters and praised Mubarak’s patriotism.

During the closing sessions of the retrial, Mubarak and his co-defendant, the former police chief Habib el-Adly, were allowed to make lengthy televised speeches – a move that Egypt’s dwindling revolutionaries saw as a sign that they may be judged innocent.

“Judging from the testimonies that have changed from the first trial, I think Mubarak will be acquitted,” said Zeinobia, a leading Egyptian blogger associated with the 2011 uprising, who asked to be referred to by her pseudonym. “Mubarak and el-Adly were given time to speak, and I feel it’s all to prepare the people for the fact that they might be acquitted, so that no one is too surprised.”

Such efforts may be unnecessary. The three years of political upheaval that followed Mubarak’s overthrow have led some Egyptians to reappraise the virtues of unseating him. The election to the presidency of Mubarak’s head of military intelligence, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, highlights the extent to which large parts of the population are reconciled to strongman rule. With Sisi’s predecessor Mohamed Morsi also facing several trials, people are now used to the concept of former presidents in the dock.

“I think people have lost interest. They have lost interest in politics in general,” said Big Pharaoh, another well-known blogger who rose to global attention in the runup to Mubarak’s fall. “I don’t know what will happen, and personally I lost interest as well.”

Asked to comment on what Mubarak would do if he were found innocent, his lawyer, Farid el-Deeb, said it was “too early to talk about future plans. A postponement [of the verdict] is legally permissible, and we don’t know what the court will do. We have to wait for Saturday.”