An Egyptian blogger in Port Said is calling for re-openning the investigation into the 1999 assasination attempt against Hosni Mubarak, after obtaining the prosecution investigation files where police witnesses say the alleged assailant (who was shot dead by the presidential bodyguards) was unarmed.

Mubarak’s security killed an Egyptian street vendor, El-Sayyed Hussein Suleiman (a.k.a. el-Arabi), on Saturday 6 September 1999, during the president’s visit to the coastal city. The government claimed then that el-Arabi broke the security chain on the side of the street, and charged the president’s motorcade holding a knife with the intention of killing him. The bodyguards riddled the man’s body with bullets.

Al-Haqiqa Al-Misriya blog obtained and posted excerpts from the prosecutor’s interrogation of the two conscripts, who were part of the policemen human chain on the side of the road, saying they pulled the rope they were holding to keep the assembled citizens away as the Mubarak’s car was passing, which led to el-Arabi tripping over and falling in the street. They also said el-Arabi was NOT armed.

The government claims regarding el-Arabi being armed and mentally deranged were merely fabrications to cover up for the trigger-happy presidential guards mess up, charged Al-Haqiqa Al-Masriya