Former Egyptian President Mubarak back in court, grinning and waving
By AYA BATRAWY Associated Press on Sep 15, 2013, at 2:43 AM Updated on 9/15/13 at 6:53 AM
Former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak attends a hearing in a courtroom at the Police Academy in Cairo on Saturday. AHMED OMAR / Associated Press
US & World
Washington Navy Yard gunman Aaron Alexis complained to police in Rhode Island last month that people were talking to him through the walls and ceilings of his hotel rooms and sending microwave vibrations into his body.
The gunman in the mass shootings at the Washington Navy Yard, Aaron Alexis, had a history of violent outbursts, and was at least twice accused of firing guns in anger.
CAIRO - An Egyptian judge on Saturday named top security officials to testify in the retrial of former President Hosni Mubarak on charges related to the killings of about 900 protesters during the 2011 uprising that led to his ouster.
The 85-year-old longtime autocrat's previous conviction for failing to stop the killings was overturned on appeals earlier this year, leaving still-open questions about who ordered the use of deadly force against protesters and who carried out those orders.
The naming of former prison and top intelligence officials in the case appeared to intertwine Mubarak's trial with accusations facing his successor, Mohammed Morsi, who was ousted in a popularly backed coup July 3 one year after his election.
Morsi has been held since at an undisclosed military facility and is being investigated on allegations that he and other Muslim Brotherhood leaders conspired with the Palestinian Hamas group in the neighboring Gaza Strip to escape from prison during the anti-Mubarak uprising.
That allegation was raised again in court Saturday by defense lawyers who suggested that Hamas militants were behind the attacks on prisons and police stations in the northern Sinai Peninsula, which borders Gaza.
Mubarak grinned and waved at supporters as he was pushed in his wheelchair into the defendants' courtroom cage Saturday. Unlike previous court sessions, in which he was lying on a gurney, Mubarak appeared healthier and more confident as he sat upright in what was his second court appearance since his release from a prison hospital last month.
He remains in detention at a military hospital pending corruption charges.
Judge Mahmoud el-Rachidi ordered a media blackout of the next three court sessions scheduled to run from Oct. 19 until Oct. 21, citing national security reasons.
In addition to Mubarak, six top police officials and the former interior minister, who oversaw Egypt's feared police for more than a decade, are on trial in the case.
Original Print Headline: Egyptian officials to testify
US & World
Washington Navy Yard gunman Aaron Alexis complained to police in Rhode Island last month that people were talking to him through the walls and ceilings of his hotel rooms and sending microwave vibrations into his body.
The gunman in the mass shootings at the Washington Navy Yard, Aaron Alexis, had a history of violent outbursts, and was at least twice accused of firing guns in anger.
