Mubarak calls on Egyptians to support Morsi’s rule, end protests

Former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak called on his country’s citizens to support current leader Mohammed Morsi in order to end the violent protests that have plagued the country.

Mubarak’s lawyer, Farid el-Deeb, told AFP that the deposed leader is “sad and frustrated” by the protests, which have left dozens dead and hundreds injured since the Islamist Morsi assumed power in June 2012.

Deeb said that while Mubarak supports the right of Egyptians to demonstrate peacefully, he denounced the violent protests that have been particularly prevalent in the capital city of Cairo and the coastal city of Port Said.

Mubarak, 84, was the president of Egypt for 30 years until he was ousted in February 2011 by popular protests. Morsi was elected in his stead, in Egypt’s first-ever democratic vote last year.

In 2012, Mubarak was convicted by an Egyptian court for his role in the deaths of some 850 protesters killed during the 18-day uprising that removed him from office. The verdict was overturned in January 2013, and a new trial is set to begin in April.

Before his reign ended, Mubarak had jailed Morsi, a leader of the once-outlawed fundamentalist group, the Muslim Brotherhood.

Nevertheless, Mubarak told Deeb that the current leader is the “elected president… people should rally around him” in order to bring an end to the violence.