Mubarak: Hamas members from Gaza broke into Egypt prisons

Ousted Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak yesterday claimed that 800 members of Hamas broke into Egyptian prisons during the January 25 Revolution, Al-Watan Voice reported.

He claimed that they infiltrated the Egyptian border from the Gaza Strip in order to support the Muslim Brotherhood.

Mubarak was in court to testify as part of a retrial in which former President Mohamed Morsi and others are accused of orchestrating prison breaks and breaches of Egypt’s eastern border during the uprising that forced Mubarak from power in February 2011.

Quizzed on alleged infiltration by foreign militants, he said his head of general intelligence had told him on 29 January 2011 of hundreds of people crossing Egypt’s border from the Gaza Strip to support the Brotherhood.

“He told me that there are armed groups which have infiltrated the borders with great numbers, around 800 people,” he told the court.

But he declined to answer questions on the role of militant groups, so as not to discuss state secrets without authorisation. “I want permission to speak about this, I am requesting permission so as not to commit an offence,” he said.

During the trial Mubarak came face to face for the first time with Morsi, who became the country’s first democratically elected president after the revolution.

READ: Egypt’s Mubarak, Morsi come face to face in court