Former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak waves to his supporters inside a cage in a courtroom at the police academy in Cairo, in this picture taken April 13 2013. Picture: REUTERSHosni Mubarak, who became Egypt’s longest-serving ruler in more than 150 years before being forced from office by a popular uprising, has died. He was 91.
Mubarak attended his trial for the killing of more than 850 protesters by security forces in the final days of his regime in a hospital bed and faced other serious charges, but was only found guilty of fraud and avoided serving additional time in jail. In photographs, a man famously known for jet-black dyed hair and swagger was seen seated, tired and greying.Mohammed Hosni Said Mubarak was born on May 4 1928, in Kafr El Meselha in the Nile Delta.
Mubarak cracked down on violent groups and went on to govern in a low-key, stolid style that contrasted with the glitter of the Sadat years. In 2004, Mubarak appointed a government that revived the sale of state assets. By 2009, it attracted more than $40bn of foreign direct investment in industries such as oil and gas, and telecoms. Emirates Telecom and Italian bank Intesa Sanpaolo were drawn to the country.But critics saw him as out of touch with the lives of most Egyptians — embracing the elite while the poor were left to grapple with an inflation rate that reached more than 20% in 2008.
“There isn’t among us anyone who wants to take the region back to the destruction of war or to the phase of no war and no peace,” he told Arab leaders in 1996. “We are sincerely determined to struggle for peace until the end.”He also retained Egypt’s alliance with the US, which began with Sadat’s noisy break with the Soviet Union. Egypt receives about $1.3bn a year in US military aid.
His experiences at home prompted warnings to his allies. In September 2001, he chided the West for failing to take terrorism seriously, warning that serious events were imminent. A few days later, on September 11, Al-Qaeda struck the US.Mubarak opposed the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, warning that “the gates of hell” would be opened in the Middle East. He argued that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict should be tackled as the first step to regional peace.
At least Egypt knew what to do with firmer crooked president...
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