Mubarak trial: the prosecution, judge and defence

Mostafa Suleiman

Cairo's deputy attorney genera leads the prosecution.

He also has had to coordinate more than 100 lawyers representing victims of last year's crackdown.

In his opening comments, broadcast on public television, he condemned Mubarak's rule, saying, "He deserves to end in humiliation and indignity, from the presidential palace to the defendants' cage and then the harshest penalty."

Farid El Deeb

The dapper, cigar-smoking defender of controversial defendants, represents Hosni Mubarak and his sons Gamal and Alaa.

In 1997, he represented Azzam Azzam, a member of Israel's Arab Druze minority who was accused of spying on Egypt for Israel.

Azzam, who was accused of using women's underwear soaked in invisible ink to pass industrial secrets to Israel, was convicted and sentenced to 15 years in prison. However, he was released as part of a prisoner swap after serving eight years.

Mr El Deeb later represented Ayman Nour, who opposed Mubarak in the 2005 presidential elections and was imprisoned for three years for campaign document forgeries.

He also defended Taalat Moustafa, a business tycoon who was convicted of ordering the murder of a Lebanese singer in Dubai and sentenced to 15 years in prison.

Mr El Deeb has maintained that Mubarak is still the president of Egypt because he did not sign a letter of resignation.

Ahmed Refaat

Ahmed Refaat, 70, leads a panel of three judges who are conducting the trial.

He has taken on the case as his final trial before retirement.

He sent Abdullah Tayel, the former chairman of the parliament's economic affairs committee, to prison for illegally acquiring public funds and money laundering in 1999, along with 18 other defendants.

He also ordered the release of 16 Muslim Brotherhood defendants in a case that many considered a political move to repress the group.

"In God's words, if you are to judge people, you must do so with justice," he said before the trial began last year.