Mubarak laid to rest
▶ The former president received a full send-off from the armed forces
Former president Hosni Mubarak, Egypt’s leader for 29 years, was given a pomp-filled military funeral yesterday, carried on a carriage drawn by six horses and accompanied by a 21-gun salute.
The funeral, led by President Abdel Fattah El Sisi, was a nod by the country’s military to one of its own. Mubarak was a former air force commander and a war hero, who was named vice president in 1975 and took over the presidency in 1981 after the killing of Anwar Sadat.
Mubarak escaped the attack on a military parade that killed Sadat, suffering only a minor hand injury despite having been sitting next to the president – a stroke of luck that was repeated when he survived at least six attempts on his life during his rule. In one attempt in 1975, militants ambushed Mubarak’s convoy in Addis Ababa but their bullets could not pierce the armoured car in which he was travelling.
The former president died on Tuesday after surgery that led to his being admitted to intensive care last week, according to state media and one of his sons, wealthy businessman Alaa Mubarak.
The funeral procession was attended by the country’s top officials and military brass, Mubarak’s sons – Alaa and Gamal – and one grandchild.
About 500 people walked behind the procession held amid tight security in an eastern suburb of Cairo.
Mubarak’s body was flown to the site of the funeral in a military helicopter. His coffin was draped in Egypt’s red, white and black flag and was put on a carriage drawn by six brown and black horses ridden by soldiers in ceremonial red coats. Two soldiers walked behind the carriage, bearing Mubarak’s medals.
Mourners offered traditional Muslim prayers for the dead at a new blue-domed mosque that is named after Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, the country’s top general who succeeded Mubarak after an 18-day uprising in 2011.
Mubarak was later buried at the family cemetery in the Cairo suburb of Heliopolis.
The funeral, according to state media and Mubarak’s backers, was fitting for a man who spent more than four decades serving his country. But to the supporters of the 2011 uprising that forced him out of office it appeared to show a disregard for the “January 25 revolution”.
Mubarak’s funeral appeared to some extent designed to project an image of the military’s unity and its loyalty to its soldiers at a time when it has assumed a high public profile, controlling large construction and infrastructure projects, overseen by Mr El Sisi.
The funeral, led by President Abdel Fattah El Sisi, was a nod by the country’s military to one of its own