The ex-President pleaded not guilty to charges against him. Charges range from conspiring in the killing of protesters to abusing power to amass wealth. If convicted, Mubarak could face the death penalty.
Judge Ahmed Refaat called for quiet as he opened the trial of the former president, his two sons Alaa and Gamal, former Interior Minister Habib al-Adli and six senior ex-officers.
A business executive and Mubarak confidant, Hussein Salem, is being tried in absentia.
Mubarak, 83, was toppled in February after 18 tumultuous days of popular protest. A military council took over, promising a transition to democracy, a process far from complete.
Lawyers for Adli asked for the Head of the Council, Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, and other political, military and security officials to be summoned as witnesses in the trial, shortly before the judge called a recess.
Alaa and Gamal Mubarak, in the white outfits of defendants, stood next to their father in the iron cage customarily used in criminal trials in Egypt.
Gamal, once viewed as being groomed for the presidency, leaned over to speak to his father, who had a stand with a drip beside him. Alaa, a businessman, seemed to be holding a Koran.
Charges range from conspiring to kill protesters to abusing office to amass wealth. The trial, televised around the world, transfixed Egyptians and other Arabs, most of whom have spent their lives under authoritarian systems shaken by this year's wave of unrest.
Mubarak is the first Arab leader to stand trial in person since popular uprisings swept the region this year. Tunisian President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, the first Arab leader to be ousted in the Arab Spring, was tried and sentenced to jail in absentia. He fled to Saudi Arabia. Iraq's Saddam Hussein was ousted by US-led forces, then tried and hanged.
Mubarak was on trial with his two sons Gamal, a banker-turned-politician once seen as being groomed for the top office, and Alaa, who had business interests, as well as former Interior Minister Habib al-Adli and six senior officers.
Source: Reuters
