Mubarak's Son Gamal Prompted Father to Change the Last Speech

from the one given by the military ("he will resign") to the defiant one that he would stay until September. The defiant speech was thus delivered on Thursday (2/10) last week, which brought an even greater number of people on the streets in Egypt in protest on Friday (2/11).

Al Arabiya reports (2/13/2011):

A heated argument broke out between Alaa and Gamal Mubarak, the two sons of the former Egyptian president, inside the presidential palace last Thursday during the recording of their father's last speech to the nation, Egypt's government owned al-Akhbar newspaper reported on Sunday.

Hosni Mubarak reportedly was supposed to announce his resignation in a speech that the military sent to him on Thursday but his son Gamal and senior officials in his entourage pressed him to deliver a different speech in which he insisted on staying in power until September.

During the recording of the speech Gamal and Alaa engaged in a heated argument that almost developed into a fight. According to the report, Alaa accused Gamal of dragging the country into corruption by helping his friends in the business industry climb the echelons of political power.

"Instead of working to help your father be honored at the end of his life, you helped damage his image this way," Alaa reportedly told his brother Gamal, who was the head of the ruling party's policies committee.

The argument was so loud that almost everyone in the palace heard them, the newspaper reported, adding that some senior government officials interfered to calm them down.
........

Al Arabiya also reports that Hosni Mubarak fell into a full coma on Saturday night at his seaside resort villa.

Some sort of justice, I suppose. ("How convenient" are the words that come to mind, putting on a tinfoil hat.)

Perhaps he could join Ariel Sharon in Israel.

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