مصر الكبرى

08:17 صباحًا EET

لجنة أمنية تقرر نقل مبارك الي المستشفى العسكري تمهيدا الي نقله الي الطبي العالمي

Mubarak May Be Returned to Hospital as Health Slips
CAIRO — Former President Hosni Mubarak’s health has deteriorated so sharply since he was first taken to prison five days ago that the authorities are close to a decision to return him to a hospital outside the penal system, security officials and the state news agency said on Wednesday.

Mr. Mubarak, 84, has suffered heart attacks, high blood pressure, a nervous breakdown and severe depression, a state news agency reported. He was placed on a respirator at least five times in the prison’s intensive care unit, state news reports said, adding that on Monday the former president, who was once a fighter pilot, cried after a visit from his wife.
Any decision to move Mr. Mubarak out of prison would further inflame public opinion, with less than two weeks to go before the runoff in the country’s first competitive presidential election. The contest pits Mr. Mubarak’s last prime minister, Ahmed Shafik, against Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s largest Islamist group.
Before the reports circulated that Mr. Mubarak might be moved, thousands of people were already in the streets of Cairo, Alexandria and other cities for a fifth night of protests at the weak verdict handed down against him, which appeared likely to collapse on appeal.
Another threat to roil the presidential race emerged Wednesday when a spokesman for the Supreme Constitutional Court said that it planned to issue decisions next Thursday, two days before the runoff voting is scheduled to begin, concerning the legitimacy of the presidential election and the legislative elections that preceded it — and potentially upending both.
The most pressing issue concerns the validity of legislation that would disqualify Mr. Shafik because of the senior role he played in the Mubarak government. After the newly elected Parliament approved the law, the presidential election commission effectively set it aside by referring it to the court.
Late Wednesday night, Egyptian state news media reported that a committee of the court had recommended a finding that that referral was improper — suggesting that Mr. Shafik should have been excluded. But the committee also called the law unconstitutional, suggesting that the court might leave him in the race.
The law is so narrow, applying to just a few people, that it appears to violate both international norms and Egyptian law, legal experts said. But the overheated political context could make the court’s decision as unpredictable and explosive as the verdict in Mr. Mubarak’s trial was.
Mr. Shafik obviously would benefit if the court strikes down the law barring him, but upholding it could damage his opponent, Mr. Morsi, by pitting him against a less polarizing opponent in the runoff than Mr. Shafik. Moreover, the presidential election commission has said it intends to have the last word on the issue, adding to the uncertainty.
“Politics aside, it is very likely that the Supreme Court will find it unconstitutional,” said Hossam Bahgat, director of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, “but the process is entirely political, of course.”
In the last two years of his rule, Mr. Mubarak packed the court with loyalists, in anticipation of a presidential election in 2011 in which he would either have run himself or backed his son Gamal. Last year’s uprising drove Mr. Mubarak from power before that could happen, but the judges remain. “The chief justice and many of the judges were parachuted in,” Mr. Bahgat said. “The process is entirely contaminated by politics.”
Scholars who have worked with the court say that if it has a bias, it may be against the Islamists of the Muslim Brotherhood. The Mubarak government considered the group a subversive menace, and it is still regarded with deep suspicion by many Mubarak appointees like the judges.
According to reports in the state news media, the court’s committee found that in the parliamentary elections, which the Brotherhood dominated, the candidates of organized parties had an improper advantage over independent candidates. But there was no indication what remedy, if any, the court might propose.
Mr. Shafik has been caught in the widespread public outrage against the Mubarak verdicts, in part because of widespread suspicion that if elected, he would pardon his former boss.
Mr. Mubarak spent the 10 months of his trial in hospital rooms rather than in prison, and reportedly was able to entertain visitors, receive catered food and take a daily swim. He was sent to prison for the first time after his sentencing on Saturday, and immediately complained of worsening health.
Security officials said Wednesday that an Interior Ministry medical committee had examined Mr. Mubarak and recommended moving him to a military hospital or other medical center.
State news media said Mr. Mubarak insisted that the air-conditioners be left off in the intensive care unit, forcing doctors to swelter because he said the machines bothered him.

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