Egypt's ex-president Hosni Mubarak returns to court for Violent clashes

Former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak gestures in this video images as he lies on a bed within a cage at the court building in Cairo on Monday as his trial on charges of corruption and complicity in killing protesters during Egypt's uprising continued. (Egyptian State TV/Associated Press)

The judge in the trial of former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, who is accused of corruption and complicity in the killing of protesters during the uprising against him, has decided to stop live TV broadcasts of the proceedings, which have been adjourned until Sept. 5.

Judge Ahmed Rifaat adjourned the trial after wrapping up Monday's proceedings. Earlier, Mubarak arrived on a stretcher at the Cairo courtroom. His older son, Alaa, covered a state TV camera as it filmed his father, wearing a blue prison jumpsuit, being wheeled out of the ambulance and into the trial venue.State TV cameras had been allowed in the courtroom for the first two hearings, but Rifaat said he decided to ban them before summoning witnesses."It is in protection of the general interest," Rifaat said."This decision pleases most of the lawyers who are really working on the case, not those who want the TV appearance," said Gamal Eid, who represents a number of families of slain protesters and watched Monday's hearing from his office."This will give us the right to some calm and concentration and turns it again into a legal case, not a show."Alaa Mubarak, the former president's other son, Gamal, former interior minister Habib el-Adly and six top security officials are also on trial.Brief scuffles between Mubarak supporters and opponents broke out outside the trial venue inside a Cairo police academy.The first day of the trial, which also saw clashes between the two sides, was taken up by procedural moves."Yes, I am here; I deny all these accusations completely," Mubarak said into a microphone. As it was Monday, the bed was placed inside a cage of mesh and iron bars, an effort to separate him from relatives of some of the 850 protesters killed in the uprising earlier this year.

About 600 people attended that first court appearance.Victims' relatives jockey for seats On Monday, victims' relatives could be heard arguing over where they would sit, to which presiding Judge Ahmed Rifaat told their lawyers, "The case needs effort, not protests or talking."The family lawyers asked to separate the corruption charges and the killing of the protesters so the trial wouldn't be delayed.The prosecution of the former president is unprecedented in the Arab world, the first time a modern Mideast leader has been put on trial fully by his own people.The closest event to it was former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's trial, but his capture came at the hands of U.S. troops in 2003 and his special tribunal was set up with extensive consultation with American officials and international experts.

Alaa Mubarak, left, and Gamal Mubarak, sons of Egypt's former president, Hosni Mubarak, in court in Cairo on Monday, in video image taken from Egyptian State Television. As is traditional in Egyptian trials, they were inside a metal defendants' cageAlaa Mubarak, left, and Gamal Mubarak, sons of Egypt's former president, Hosni Mubarak, in court in Cairo on Monday, in video image taken from Egyptian State Television. As is traditional in Egyptian trials, they were inside a metal defendants' cage (Egyptian State TV/Associated Press)Tunisia's deposed president, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, has been tried and convicted several times since he fell several weeks before Mubarak, but always in absentia. He remains in exile in Saudi Arabia.Mubarak, el-Adly and others are charged with murder and attempted murder in connection with the protesters who were killed. All could face the death penalty if convicted.

 

Blast in China's Kashgar kills at least three

BEIJING — An explosion rocked the far-west Chinese city of Kashgar Sunday, killing at least three people including a policeman in the latest in a series of attacks in the region this month, the state-run news agency Xinhua reported.
 
The explosion came about 16 hours after two other blasts were reported in Kashgar and eight people were killed in a knife attack in the city, in the restive Xinjiang region near Tajikistan.
A group of Uighur exiles from the region said martial law had been imposed in Kashgar and that at least 100 people had been arrested.
Xinjiang is strategically vital to China and Beijing has shown no sign of loosening its grip on the territory, which accounts for one-sixth of China's land mass, holds rich deposits of oil and gas and borders Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and Central Asia.
Police apprehended two suspects after Sunday's blast, which also wounded three people, Xinhua said.
There were no other details immediately available and Xinjiang regional officials did not answer calls to land and mobile telephone lines.

Earlier Sunday, Chinese media reported that two men wielding knives attacked a truck driver and then a crowd of people following two explosions in Kashgar Saturday night, leaving eight people dead including one of the attackers, according to tianshannet.com, a Xinjiang government-run website, and Xinhua.
One of Saturday's blasts was from a minivan while another occurred in a food market, Xinhua said.
There were no other details from the reports.
Xinjiang is home to many Uighurs, a mostly Muslim Turkic-speaking people native to the region, many of whom resent the growing presence of majority Han Chinese who have moved there. Some Uighur groups have campaigned for independence.

TIGHT SECURITY
Eighteen people including 14 "rioters" were killed in an attack on a police station in Xinjiang on July 18, according to the government. The dead included two policemen and two hostages in what Chinese authorities described as a terrorist attack.That clash was the worst violence in about a year in Xinjiang.Rights groups say Xinjiang remains under tight security, more than two years after its capital Urumqi was rocked by violence between Han Chinese and Uighurs that killed nearly 200 people.Since then, China has executed nine people it blamed for instigating the riots, detained and prosecuted hundreds and ramped up spending on security, according to state media and overseas rights groups.Saturday's attacks began with the two blasts, Xinhua said. Two men jumped into a truck waiting at a stoplight and stabbed to death the driver, Xinhua and tianshannet.com said.The pair then plowed into a crowd, left the truck and started attacking people, killing six, Xinhua said.The crowd retaliated, beating one of the attackers to death and capturing the other, according to the accounts, which did not further identify the attackers.Twenty-eight people were treated in hospital, it said.
There were no other immediate details. The reports did not say if authorities suspect there is any link to a Uighur separatist movement or to the July 18 attack."The entire city of Kashgar is under martial law, and authorities have arrested at least 100 Uighurs," the German-based World Uyghur Congress said.
"There is no way to protest peacefully the Chinese suppression there, and the policy of calculated resettlement," group spokesman Dilxat Raxit said in a statement sent by email to Reuters, referring to ethnic Han Chinese being relocated to live in Xinjiang.