CAIRO — 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 the report could hold both political gains and dangers for his successor, Mohammed 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.
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.
“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, said. “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 chief prosecutor Talaat Abdullah to investigatenew evidence, his office said Wednesday.
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 taking 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.
The trial of Mubarak and other figures from his regime left the public deeply unconvinced justice was done. The prosecution was limited in scope, focusing only on the first few days of the 18-day uprising and on two narrow corruption cases. Lawyers have since criticized the case as shoddy, based mainly on evidence collected by batteredand widely hated police in the days after the uprising.
In the verdicts last summer, Mubarak and his two sons were acquitted on corruptioncharges. His former interior minister was convicted and sentenced to life in prison for complicity in the crackdown, while six top security aides were acquitted for lack of evidence.
One key new finding by thecommission 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.
“Mubarak knew of all the crimes that took place directly. The images were carried to him live, and he didn’t evenneed security reports,” said Ragheb. “This entails a legal responsibility” in the violence against the protesters, including a battle where Mubarak supporters, including men on horses and camels, stormed Tahrir Square.
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.
Information for this article was contributed by Mariam Rizk of The Associated Press.
Front Section, Pages 6 on 01/03/2013