Egypt's former president Hosni Mubarak dead

Text by: Claire Arsenault Follow

Hosni Mubarak died at the age of 91 at the Galaa military hospital in Cairo, on February 25, 2020. His brother-in-law, General Mounir Thabet, announced his death. Back on the journey of the one who ruled Egypt with an iron fist for 30 years, until his fall in 2011.

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A young man of modest origin, Hosni Mubarak was born on May 4, 1928 in the Nile Delta and yet had completed a flawless journey in uniform. For him, the Egyptian army had served as a social promoter. As soon as he left high school, he joined the Egyptian Military Academy, then in 1950, the Air Force Academy from which he graduated major of his promotion.

He will then climb with disconcerting ease all levels of the career to, in 1964, take the head of the delegation of the Egyptian army in the USSR and stand out during the Yom Kippur War in 1973. A rise which he will be worth in passing to become number two of the National Democratic Party, vice-president of the Republic, but especially to endorse the intangible status of national hero.

Egyptian President Anouar al-Sadat and his vice-president Hosni Mubarak, in the presidential helicopter, January 1, 1977. David Hume Kennerly / Getty

Hosni Mubarak becomes the right arm of President Anouar al-Sadat. In 1981 Sadat was assassinated by Islamists; the general staff then chooses Mubarak to succeed him at the head of the country. The state of emergency is then decreed and it will not be lifted until 2012 . The new raïs will therefore never cease to establish a flawless hold on all the machinery of the State.

To do this, in almost three decades of absolute power at the head of the most populous country in the Arab world, Hosni Mubarak will have benefited from the support of the United States, in hard cash, an indirect “reward” for the agreements de Camp David , signed in September 1978 in the United States, between Israel and Egypt. Thus, since 1980, the "American friend" will have invested some 36 billion dollars in the Egyptian armed forces, as recalled, in 2008, Margaret Scobey American ambassador stationed in Cairo in a note addressed to General David Petraeus then commander in chief of the American armies in the Middle East.

Six times we tried to kill Mubarak

This generous contribution enabled the Egyptian army not only to maintain a correct level of equipment, but above all to make it a leading investor in the civil industry. Mubarak and the army have therefore formed, in three decades, a perfectly aligned tandem. This pas de deux only disagreed after the 18-day revolt that brought down Mubarak in 2011. The army then maneuvered so that the angry people could believe that it was their own side. However, the sequence of events has shown that it was betting more on the continuity of the regime, but without Mubarak.

Since his accession to the head of the country, his opponents have attempted six times to assassinate the rais. Between riots or harshly repressed demonstrations, and the multiplication of attacks claimed or attributed to Islamist groups, the Mubarak regime handles the stick more easily than political openness. However, in 2003, under the influence of his son Gamal whom he would have liked to see succeed him, he announced measures of political democratization. The legislative elections of 2005 will thus favor a historic breakthrough of the Muslim Brotherhood, a prohibited but tolerated formation, which now has 88 deputies out of 454.

The opening will be short-lived: the Muslim Brotherhood will not get a seat in the first round of the legislative elections in 2010. Denouncing fraud on the part of the government, they boycott the second round. The National Democratic Party wins 85% of the seats. But it is the triumph of too many. Egyptian mechanics hiccups, the old president is sick, rumors about his death regularly shudder the country and the stock market is more concerned than its people.

January 25, 2011 will be declared "day of anger" by opponents of the regime. For 18 days, the demonstrations multiply in the country while the opposition shows its capacity for mobilization in Tahrir Square, in Cairo. Every day, Egyptians are more likely to demand the departure of Hosni Mubarak who eventually give up its functions and fled with his family in Sharm el-Sheikh. Eight hundred and fifty people were killed and thousands were injured during the Egyptian revolt.

An eventful judicial journey

In wanting to hang on at all costs, against all odds, Hosni Mubarak had lost everything: his political influence in the region, his powerful American ally, the vital support of the army, and finally took refuge in a holiday resort before to be transferred to Cairo to be tried and sentenced to life imprisonment on June 2, 2012 . Seized, the Court of Cassation had quashed the sentence for obscure procedural reasons and ordered a new trial which he emerged whitewashed in late November 2014 .

A few months earlier, in August 2013, he had been sentenced to three years' detention for embezzlement of public funds, again he was acquitted. He was then placed on parole pending further trials. Other corruption cases previously tried brought him a new trial in 2015 , after which he was sentenced to three years in prison, like his two sons, for embezzling 10 million euros of public funds . Then, on March 2, 2017, he was definitively acquitted on the charges of murder of 239 demonstrators who occurred during the January 2011 uprisings, a leniency applied to most of the officials of the former regime.

Egypt still facing the crisis

Since the fall of the rais, Egypt has not found peace. One crisis followed another, the Muslim Brotherhood won the legislative elections in 2012 and their leader Mohamed Morsi, in June became the country's first democratically elected president. The truce was short-lived, in July 2013 Morsi was overthrown by the army, the riots started again. Egypt is again on fire and blood. The new strongman, Marshal Abdel Fattah Al-Sissi, picks up where Mubarak left them.

The repression stronger than ever strikes the Muslim Brotherhood, the young liberals, the democrats… The ex-president Morsi is condemned to death in May and in June 2015, sentence canceled in November 2016, but he is still detained under the blow of the '' a life sentence. All in the name of the fight against terrorism. The army has firmly taken the reins, the judges their death sentences in series: the heirs of Mubarak regain their luster of yesteryear.

►Also listen: Revolution in Egypt, year 9

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