‘Toppled president’ appellation irks Mubarak

Cairo: Egypt’s former president Hosni Mubarak has said, in an audio message attributed to him, that he is “mostly displeased” for being called “the toppled president”.

“This is shameful. There is no country in the whole world that uses the term ‘the toppled president’,” the 85-year-old added in the message uploaded by the Egyptian independent newspaper Al Watan on its website Wednesday as part of what it said was an interview recorded in a prison hospital where Mubarak is staying.

“I stepped down to preserve the people’s lives. I could have stayed in office, but I decided to step down to preserve people’s lives and avoid bloodshed.”

A 2011 popular uprising forced Mubarak to resign after nearly 30 years in power. “I took the decision to step down and no-one pressured me to do this. God knows everything,” Mubarak said in the released part of the interview.

Al Watan said the interview was conducted in parts by what it called a “close source” to Mubarak whom it did not name.

In the purported interview, Mubarak accused the ruling Muslim Brotherhood, whom he long suppressed, of seeking to humiliate him.

“They want to humiliate me by keeping moving me from the hospital, prison and the court.”

In August last year, a criminal court sentenced Mubarak to life in prison on charges of complicity in killing protesters during the revolt that deposed him. In January, the country’s highest court revoked the sentence and ordered a retrial for him.

He is now staying at the hospital of the Tura Prison in southern Cairo.

“They think they can humiliate me. No. In my life, I have seen much worse. I fought in wars. In the army, we suffer a lot and are accustomed to facing hardships.”

Mubarak was the chief of Egypt’s air force before his predecessor president Anwar Sadat named his deputy. Mubarak became Egypt’s fourth president after Sadat’s assassination in 1981.

Asked to comment on current turmoil in Egypt under Islamists’ rule, Mubarak said in the message: “I am distressed. They [Egyptians] are the ones who have chosen them.”

The secular-minded opposition accuses the Muslim Brotherhood of seeking to monopolise power and failing to fulfill the objectives of the anti-Mubarak revolt.

Mubarak also lashed out at the US of which he was a key ally when he was in power.

“What the US is essentially interested in is guaranteeing Israel’s security,” he said. “They [the US] have long pressured on Arabs for this goal.”

Mubarak claimed that he repeatedly rejected US bids to set up military bases in Egypt.

Al Watan’s managing editor Mahmoud Al Musalemy told a local TV station that they removed parts from the interview with Mubarak “to protect national interests”.