Deposed President Hosni Mubarak told prosecutors that he did not order the shooting or beating of demonstrators during the 25 January revolution, and that he ordered the armed forces to step in to protect and reassure the Egyptian people.
“If any of the Interior Ministry chiefs implicated me in their investigations, they were lying,” he said.
He also said that he had made an initial decision to step down on the fourth day of the demonstrations, but changed his mind when he was told that the country would thereby descend into chaos, and that the demonstrators only wanted to change his cabinet.
Meanwhile, medical sources said Mubarak’s psychological and physical state deteriorated after hearing of his 15-day detention order on Tuesday.
They also said his wife asked the authorities not to tell him that his sons had been arrested, but that he found out later anyway.
Medical reports said that Mubarak’s heart is in good shape, comparable to that of a man in his thirties, and that he has no cancer and is not undergoing chemotherapy.
Sources close to the Mubarak family said his psychological condition started to deteriorate when he heard that Zakareya Azmi, his former chief of presidential staff, had been arrested. They also denied that a helicopter had landed near Sharm el-Sheikh Hospital, where Mubarak is being treated, to fly him to a hospital in Cairo.
Judicial sources said Egyptian law allows Mubarak to be detained in the hospital instead of jail due to his medical condition.
Sharm el-Sheikh on Tuesday witnessed anti-Mubarak demonstrations, where protesters welcomed the decision to detain him and his sons, and considered it a gift to the martyrs of the revolution.
Translated from the Arabic Edition
