US 'confident' Mubarak trial will be fair

Hosni Mubarak lies on a stretcher as he listens to
the opening proceedings in a holding cell in
the court room
© AFP/Egyptian TV

AFP

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The United States said Wednesday it is confident that the trial underway in Egypt of former strongman Hosni Mubarak will be fair and transparent.

“We’ll obviously follow the trial closely,” State Department deputy spokesman Mark Toner told reporters.

“It’s very important that it be a free, be a transparent and… fair process,” Toner said.

“We have confidence that they can do that,” he said. “We believe that Egyptian authorities are able to carry out a… a fair trial in this case. And that’s really ultimately up to them to do so.”

Mubarak, overthrown in February amid a pro-democracy uprising, went on trial Wednesday on murder charges, the first Arab ruler to appear in court in person in a historic moment for a region whose leaders are rarely held to account.

The former president, looking pale and dressed in white, pleaded not guilty as he lay on a stretcher in a metal-barred cage to the premeditated murder of protesters who took to the streets to topple his regime.

His lawyer, Farid al-Deeb, will argue that Mubarak, 83, is too sick to stand trial and that he did not sanction the brutal crackdown on protesters that left more than 850 people dead by the time Mubarak resigned on February 11.