The Theory of Conspiracy in Mubarak's Bed

You would never see a defendant being rolled in a cage in a court room in a bed, except in Egypt.  Mubarak of Egypt is on trial, and the bed on which he lays has ignited the rumor mill and has helped sustain the theory of conspiracy.

Whenever his name is called by the presiding judge, Mubarak's response "present" is loud and clear.  His hair is black - so he must be attended to by someone who dyes his hair - sitting.

According to the theory of conspiracy, Mubarak was advised by SCAF (the Supreme Council of Armed Forces), Egypt's present de facto Government, not to appear in court standing.  Lying in bed, it is rumored, is intended to lessen the shock of showing the deposed dictator of Egypt standing in a cage before civilian judges.  The bed prop may also generate some sympathy towards him in a public that is traditionally emotional and forgiving to those who have fallen from power.  An Arabic proverb sums it all up: "Respect those who were mighty until their days of power have come to and end."


The demonstrators of Tahrir have wished to hear Mubarak defending himself against charges of corruption, use of deadly force against peaceful demonstrators, torture, and illegal diversion of public funds and State land.  Some of those demonstrators want to see him hang.  Their vengefulness is an outcome of thirty years of misrule and suppression.

In this context, the present plans to have Mubarak join his 2 sons and other fallen high-level defendants at the Tora Farm prison is under constant attack.  "Why treat Mubarak differently from treating any other common criminal?!"

The rumor mill in Egypt goes on its merry way, conjecturing that may be, when he is not lying in bed, "like a mummy" in court, he plays squash - his most favorite sport.  The conspiracy theorists also posit that the trial of this modern day "Pharaoh" is a mere show whose scenario has been written by SCAF.  In essence, they are busy spreading the word that even moving their former dictator from "the International Medical Center," where he is pretended to be in intensive care, to the Tora Farm prison where his two sons, together with the rest of Mubarak & Sons, Inc., shall be accompanied by superb amenities.

The appeals motion submitted by the Mubarak defense team to have their client and his two sons released, with all what they have accumulated by way of illegal wealth divested to the State treasury, has been summarily dismissed.  Their other motion calling for trying him before a military tribunal (after all, he is a military man who had headed the Egyptian Air Force) was debunked by the Chief of Military Justice, General Adel Al-Morsi.  On what grounds?  At a press conference held in Cairo on Wednesday, February 29, Al-Morsi declared that "Mubarak does no longer enjoy any military status enabling Military Justice jurisdiction to attach to him."  But was not Mubarak the Egyptian Commander in Chief?  General Al-Morsi responded brusquely: "that title was merely honorific!!"

The attempts by the Mubarak defense team to separate the most grievous charges against him, namely ordering the killing of 850 demonstrators in January/February 2011, from the lesser charges of corruption, was behind the failed move to have their client appear before a more sympathetic judicial military panel.

No one yet knows what the Mubarak trial will produce by the way of a credible verdict.  The SCAF seems to be distancing itself from him, in spite of the narrative of the conspiracy theorists.  The Islamists seem to be more concerned with how to develop, through their parliamentary majorities in the two houses of Parliament, their skills to govern an Egypt of a historic diversity.  The Tahrir demonstrators are bereft of a coherent ideology, except, at least for now, to get the SCAF back to the barracks.  The Government of Dr. Al-Ganzouri is struggling to slow the free fall of the Egyptian economy.

With or without his bed, Mubarak's sympathizers are mainly outside Egypt - in Jordan and the Gulf area.  While in Jordan last week before a Jordanian Court to defend an international client, I heard people wondering aloud: "Why subject an 83 year old man, a former president of the most populous Arab State, to those indignities?"  The answer lies in the 60 year old history of an Egypt ruled by the iron fist of a brutalizing military dictatorship.  That era is over!!