Egypt's former president Hosni Mubarak was wheeled into a courtroom in a hospital bed today to face trial for conspiring to kill protesters.
"I entirely deny all those accusations," Mr Mubarak said, speaking from the bed where he lay inside a cage for defendants in the Cairo court. His two sons, Gamal and Alaa, both holding copies of the Koran, also denied charges.
The prosecution accuses Mr Mubarak of involvement in the killing of protesters and allowing his interior minister Habib al-Adli to use live ammunition against them.
The court heard that Mr Mubarak "had the intention to kill a number of protesters in different governorates who staged peaceful demonstrations against the deterioration of conditions".
The killings were ordered during the 18-day protest that ousted him this year and during the period from 2000 to 2010, the prosecution said.
Mr Mubarak was also accused of corruption and wasting public funds.
A lawyer acting for families of those killed in the Egyptian uprising said Mr Adli was ordered by Mr Mubarak to kill demonstrators. "He took orders from the ousted president to kill the protesters ... We ask for implementation of the top punishment for the accused," the lawyer said.
Mr Mubarak ( 83) will be moved on a permanent basis from a hospital in Sharm el-Sheikh on the Red Sea, where he has been since April, to a hospital inside the Police Academy complex where he is being tried.
Ahmed Farghali, among protesters who had gathered outside the hospital in Sharm el-Sheikh from where Mr Mubarak was flown to Cairo, said he could not believe he would see the president locked in a cage. "It was beyond my wildest dreams," he said.
Police patrolled the street near Mr Mubarak's hospital and barred the way to a small group of protesters outside, chanting: "The people want the execution of the killer."
Outside the court site on the outskirts of Cairo, a screen was erected to show the trial. Pro- and anti-Mubarak protesters faced off. Some in the two groups hurled stones at each other before hundreds of police intervened to calm them down.
A small pro-Mubarak rally of men, women and children chanted: "Oh Mubarak hold your head high" and "We will demolish the prison and burn it down, if Hosni Mubarak is sentenced".
Protesters had camped out in Tahrir for three weeks in July seeking a swifter trial for the former president and other reforms. They feared the ruling generals would use Mr Mubarak's illness as a ploy to avoid publicly humiliating the war veteran and ex-president who ran Egypt for 30 years until February 11th.
If convicted, Mr Mubarak could face the death penalty. In his only public comments since quitting, he vowed in April to clear his name and that of his family of accusations of corruption.
Tunisian president Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, the first Arab leader to be ousted in the Arab Spring, was tried and sentenced to jail in absentia. He fled to Saudi Arabia.
Reuters