CAIRO — The trial of former president Hosni Mubarak resumed Monday, then adjourned to Wednesday after several witnesses, including four police officers, testified during off-camera proceedings.
Monday’s session — the third since the trial opened August 3 — heard one witness blame the chief of anti-riot forces for dozens of deaths in Egypt’s revolution.
The court is trying to determine whether orders for police to fire on crowds were given solely by the interior ministry or if Mubarak was also implicated.
Mubarak could face the death penalty if found guilty of involvement in the killings.
Four police officers took the witness stand Monday, including Hussein Saeed Mursi, who headed the anti-riot police’s communications department at the time of the uprising.
Mursi singled out General Ahmed Ramzi, head of anti-riot forces, as having given “clear instructions to protect the interior ministry and deal with the demonstrators with automatic weapons.”
Ramzi is one of those on trial, along with Mubarak, former interior minister Habib al Adly and other police officials.
The hearing was held off-camera, unlike the first two sessions which saw Mubarak appearing in court bound to a stretcher and caged, in gripping images broadcast live on TV.
Footage broadcast by state TV showed the 83-year-old arriving in an ambulance for the hearing Monday at the police academy in the capital’s outer suburbs.
Before he got there, demonstrators clashed near the courtroom.
“We have not abandoned you,” the pro-Mubarak protesters chanted, while their rivals shouted, “Punishment, punishment, they killed our children with bullets.”