Supporters and opponents of former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak confronted Monday at the police academy in Cairo, where the trial of the former Egyptian president takes place under special security.
The trial resumed on Monday shortly after Mubarak was brought on a stretcher to the courtroom.
The police academy building, located on the outskirts of the Egyptian capital, is guarded by 5,000 police members, according to television in Cairo, and there were several armored military stationed nearby. However, pro and against Mubarak demonstrators attacked each other with stones, and at least five people were slightly injured in the incidents.
About 100 supporters of former President arrived in the area Monday morning, carrying portraits of him and chanting “We love you” and “No to humiliation”. Another 100 people were gathered outside the court with ropes, the symbol of hanging and shouting “Justice, justice”.
The first leader of the Middle East brought to court after the “Arab spring”, Mubarak, aged 83, was transported by helicopter near the police academy, where he was taken over by an ambulance. He was placed in the accuser’s dock, where he talked briefly with his sons, who are near the stretcher, seeming to want to protect their father from the cameras.
President of the Cairo Criminal Court, Ahmed Refaat, asked dozens of lawyers present in the courtroom to keep “calm and quiet” suspending the meeting for deliberations after only half an hour.
Mubarak is accused of ordering police to open fire on protesters demanding his resignation, and corruption and for allowing the sale of Egyptian gas to Israel, at prices below those required by the market.
Farid al-Dib, the former president’s lawyer, asked the judge at the first hearing, the convening of 1,600 witnesses, including Marshal Tantaoui, Minister of Defence for 20 years and currently commander of the military council that took over the power in the country.
From his first trial hearing held on August 3, Mubarak is held at the International Medical Center located near Cairo. He was hospitalized in April at the international hospital in Sharm el-Sheikh, where he remained in detention until the start of the trial.
His lawyer recently announced that the former Egyptian leader has cancer and was in coma, but the hospital management denied that information. Medical sources quoted by the official press agency MENA said on Monday that Mubarak’s health is “stable”, the former leader being constantly supervised by a medical team.