N Y : Prosecutor Accuses Security Forces of Interfering in Mubarak Trial

The Egyptian prosecutor in the trial of former President Hosni Mubarak said Wednesday that the military-led government’s security forces had obstructed his case, suggesting that the nation’s law enforcement officials were not all committed to a vigorous prosecution of their former boss.“They deliberately sought to mislead justice,” the prosecutor, Mustafa Suleiman, told the court, convened in the auditorium of a Cairo police academy once named after the deposed president, according to news agencies and people who were present. The state security apparatus “deliberately refused to cooperate with the prosecution,” he was quoted as saying.

Without the cooperation of the Interior Ministry or the leaders of the security police, the prosecutor said, he had only a fraction of the potential evidence he believed he might gather. He said he was forced to conduct an independent investigation to gather evidence and build a case against Mr. Mubarak, his interior minister and other top officials. They are charged with corruption and murder, including responsibility for the killing of hundreds of demonstrators during the 18-day uprising that ended Mr. Mubarak’s rule.

In addressing the court, Mr. Suleiman asserted for the first time that Mr. Mubarak and his top internal security officials had made an explicit decision to use live ammunition against peaceful demonstrations on Jan. 27, 2011 — two days after the protests broke out, and the day before they reached a bloody climax known as the “Friday of Rage” that ended in the collapse of the police force.

As evidence, the prosecution read depositions it had taken from police officers and offered videos obtained from private television networks that showed security-police officers loading weapons, government vehicles running over demonstrators and police officers firing down from rooftops. In at least one video, an officer is seen killing a demonstrator with a bullet to the head fired at close range.

“The defendants before you in the cage are the actual instigators, and are the ones who gave police officers the order to shoot,” Mr. Suleiman told the court, according to news agencies. “The protesters were peaceful, and it was the police that started firing on them.”

Other lawyers who are following the trial, though, said that there remained a conspicuous gap in the prosecution’s case: proof that the decisions and instructions of Mr. Mubarak and his lieutenants led directly to those shootings.

Other hints of internal discord in the military-led government have also surfaced recently.