EGYPT: The detention of Hosni Mubarak extended

AFP - The Egyptian judiciary said Tuesday it has extended the detention of former President Hosni Mubarak for 15 days as part of the investigation into the suppression of anti-regime protests earlier this year.

The Prosecutor General Abdel Meguid Mahmoud "ordered the preventive detention of former President Hosni Mubarak for 15 days, beginning at the end of his current period of detention" May 12, said in a statement.

The spokesman for the Prosecutor's Office said a team of investigators visited the hospital Tuesday in Sharm el-Sheikh on the Red Sea, where Mr.Mubarak, for further interrogation.

A source at the prosecutor's office told AFP that he would announce in coming days if Mr. Mubarak will be tried or not.

He could be sentenced to up to hanging if convicted, had said in late April the Minister of Justice, Abdel Aziz al-Guindi.

The former president, 83 years, driven by 11 February a popular revolt that ended three decades of power, had been placed in custody April 13 for periods of 15 days, renewable.He is charged along with his two son Gamal and Alaa to the violent repression of the protest movement and is suspected of corruption.

Mr.Mubarak is being treated since April 12 at the international hospital in Sharm el-Sheikh resort in Sinai, after having a heart attack during interrogation.

He is asked about his responsibility in the deaths of protesters during the revolt (January 25 to February 11) and the controversial contracts for the sale of Egyptian gas to Israel which led to losses of several billion dollars for the country, according the prosecution.

According to one report, 846 civilians died in the protests that led to the departure Mubarak.A member of the commission of inquiry into the suppression indicated that the former president was complicit in the bloodshed.

Former Interior Minister Habib el-Adli is on trial for ordering the firing against demonstrators, after being sentenced to twelve years in prison Thursday for embezzlement.

More than two months after the fall of M.Mubarak, the pressure remains high in Egypt for the former president and his immediate family are brought to justice swiftly.

Justice had asked the Interior Ministry being transferred to Tora prison in the southern outskirts of Cairo, where his son already Alaa and Gamal, also detained for periods of 15 days, renewable, and former Ministers and senior officials of the regime.

But the department ruled that the prison hospital was not adequately equipped to cope with any rapid deterioration in his health.

On 10 April, Mr. Mubarak was out for the first time in its silence to be a victim of "defamation". In a speech sound, he denounced the "smear campaigns" against him and defended his "reputation" and his "integrity." He assured that neither he nor his wife Suzanne had any assets abroad and said he was ready to cooperate with the law.