CAIRO // It was meant to be the historic trial of a dictator brought to justice by his long-suffering people, but the case against Egypt's ex-president Hosni Mubarak has verged on the farcical as prosecutors and lawyers struggle to rise to the occasion.
From the start of the trial on August 3, lawyers representing Mubarak's victims drained the proceedings of gravitas as they jostled for the chance to hold forth on live television.
One man who identified himself as a lawyer told the chief judge, Ahmed Refaat, that Mubarak had in fact died some years ago and the man lying on the stretcher in the caged dock was a double.
He demanded a DNA analysis to establish the defendant's true identity.
During one recess, another lawyer declared his candidacy for upcoming presidential elections, promising to legalise hashish and export it.
But more galling to relatives of the roughly 850 people killed during the uprising that ousted Mubarak a year ago has been the prosecution's patchwork evidence against the man who ruled with an iron fist for 30 years.
Mubarak, his former interior ministry and six security chiefs are accused of ordering the killings of protesters during the 18-day revolt that forced the president to resign on February 11.
He could -- theoretically -- hang if found guilty. The prosecution has called for the death sentence, telling the court that it had assembled a strong case against the former strongman.
Yet the prosecutors, huddled together behind a desk in the courtroom, appeared to wilt as they listened to their own witnesses exonerate Mubarak and his security aides of the murder charges.
One prosecution witness, a police officer, said he had been ordered to treat protesters as brothers. And several said they were ordered not to carry deadly weapons during the protests.
At the start of each hearing, Mubarak, ashen faced and apparently disgusted by the spectacle, was wheeled on a stretcher into the makeshift courtroom at a lecture hall in a police academy once named after him.
He shares the defendants' cage with his security chiefs and his two sons Alaa and Gamal, who face corruption charges along with their father.
Mubarak's resignation and subsequent disappearance from public view into a villa in the Red Sea resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh placated Egyptians for only a while.
Soon demonstrations calling for him to be put on trial began to grow.
After the military, which took charge of the country following his ouster, clashed with protesters in Cairo during a sit-in in April, the public prosecutor ordered that Mubarak face questioning.
A few days later, the former president and his two sons were ordered detained. And a month later they were referred to trial.
Almost every step of the way to the actual trial, the announcements appeared to coincide with growing unrest against the military, through whose ranks Mubarak had clambered to become president.
Last week, amid deadly protests against army rule, the caretaker government announced Mubarak would be moved from a military hospital on the outskirts of Cairo, where he is being treated for a heart condition, to a prison hospital.
The military, headed by Mubarak's long-time defence minister Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, has been eager to prove that it harbours no loyalty to its former master.
Putting the former strongman on trial would also help defuse growing criticism that the military was trying to delay justice.
Instead, lawyers who represent his alleged victims' families say the trial of Mubarak began too soon, before the prosecution could prepare a strong case against him.
Now, with the hearings drawing to an end a year after his overthrow, the decision to place Mubarak in the dock presents the ruling generals with a dilemma.
If Mubarak is convicted, his lawyers and legal experts believe there would be strong grounds for appeal. And his acquittal could further inflame the growing protest movement against military rule.
What is graphene?
Graphene is extracted from graphite and is made up of pure carbon.
It is 200 times more resistant than steel and five times lighter than aluminum.
It conducts electricity better than any other material at room temperature.
It is thought that graphene could boost the useful life of batteries by 10 per cent.
Graphene can also detect cancer cells in the early stages of the disease.
The material was first discovered when Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov were 'playing' with graphite at the University of Manchester in 2004.
The five pillars of Islam
Forced%20Deportations
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Violence%20
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COMPANY%20PROFILE%20
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COMPANY%20PROFILE
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The specs
Engine: 2.7-litre 4-cylinder Turbomax
Power: 310hp
Torque: 583Nm
Transmission: 8-speed automatic
Price: From Dh192,500
On sale: Now
Race%20card
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How will Gen Alpha invest?
Mark Chahwan, co-founder and chief executive of robo-advisory firm Sarwa, forecasts that Generation Alpha (born between 2010 and 2024) will start investing in their teenage years and therefore benefit from compound interest.
“Technology and education should be the main drivers to make this happen, whether it’s investing in a few clicks or their schools/parents stepping up their personal finance education skills,” he adds.
Mr Chahwan says younger generations have a higher capacity to take on risk, but for some their appetite can be more cautious because they are investing for the first time. “Schools still do not teach personal finance and stock market investing, so a lot of the learning journey can feel daunting and intimidating,” he says.
He advises millennials to not always start with an aggressive portfolio even if they can afford to take risks. “We always advise to work your way up to your risk capacity, that way you experience volatility and get used to it. Given the higher risk capacity for the younger generations, stocks are a favourite,” says Mr Chahwan.
Highlighting the role technology has played in encouraging millennials and Gen Z to invest, he says: “They were often excluded, but with lower account minimums ... a customer with $1,000 [Dh3,672] in their account has their money working for them just as hard as the portfolio of a high get-worth individual.”
Get Out
Director: Jordan Peele
Stars: Daniel Kaluuya, Allison Williams, Catherine Keener, Bradley Whitford
Four stars
Five famous companies founded by teens
There are numerous success stories of teen businesses that were created in college dorm rooms and other modest circumstances. Below are some of the most recognisable names in the industry:
- Facebook: Mark Zuckerberg and his friends started Facebook when he was a 19-year-old Harvard undergraduate.
- Dell: When Michael Dell was an undergraduate student at Texas University in 1984, he started upgrading computers for profit. He starting working full-time on his business when he was 19. Eventually, his company became the Dell Computer Corporation and then Dell Inc.
- Subway: Fred DeLuca opened the first Subway restaurant when he was 17. In 1965, Mr DeLuca needed extra money for college, so he decided to open his own business. Peter Buck, a family friend, lent him $1,000 and together, they opened Pete’s Super Submarines. A few years later, the company was rebranded and called Subway.
- Mashable: In 2005, Pete Cashmore created Mashable in Scotland when he was a teenager. The site was then a technology blog. Over the next few decades, Mr Cashmore has turned Mashable into a global media company.
- Oculus VR: Palmer Luckey founded Oculus VR in June 2012, when he was 19. In August that year, Oculus launched its Kickstarter campaign and raised more than $1 million in three days. Facebook bought Oculus for $2 billion two years later.
TRAP
Starring: Josh Hartnett, Saleka Shyamalan, Ariel Donaghue
Director: M Night Shyamalan
Rating: 3/5
MATCH INFO
Quarter-finals
Saturday (all times UAE)
England v Australia, 11.15am
New Zealand v Ireland, 2.15pm
Sunday
Wales v France, 11.15am
Japan v South Africa, 2.15pm
Cinco in numbers
Dh3.7 million
The estimated cost of Victoria Swarovski’s gem-encrusted Michael Cinco wedding gown
46
The number, in kilograms, that Swarovski’s wedding gown weighed.
1,000
The hours it took to create Cinco’s vermillion petal gown, as seen in his atelier [note, is the one he’s playing with in the corner of a room]
50
How many looks Cinco has created in a new collection to celebrate Ballet Philippines’ 50th birthday
3,000
The hours needed to create the butterfly gown worn by Aishwarya Rai to the 2018 Cannes Film Festival.
1.1 million
The number of followers that Michael Cinco’s Instagram account has garnered.
Company%20Profile
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EName%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EDirect%20Debit%20System%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EStarted%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Sept%202017%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EBased%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20UAE%20with%20a%20subsidiary%20in%20the%20UK%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EIndustry%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20FinTech%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EFunding%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Undisclosed%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EInvestors%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Elaine%20Jones%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ENumber%20of%20employees%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%208%3Cbr%3E%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
Zakat definitions
Zakat: an Arabic word meaning ‘to cleanse’ or ‘purification’.
Nisab: the minimum amount that a Muslim must have before being obliged to pay zakat. Traditionally, the nisab threshold was 87.48 grams of gold, or 612.36 grams of silver. The monetary value of the nisab therefore varies by current prices and currencies.
Zakat Al Mal: the ‘cleansing’ of wealth, as one of the five pillars of Islam; a spiritual duty for all Muslims meeting the ‘nisab’ wealth criteria in a lunar year, to pay 2.5 per cent of their wealth in alms to the deserving and needy.
Zakat Al Fitr: a donation to charity given during Ramadan, before Eid Al Fitr, in the form of food. Every adult Muslim who possesses food in excess of the needs of themselves and their family must pay two qadahs (an old measure just over 2 kilograms) of flour, wheat, barley or rice from each person in a household, as a minimum.