The issue: Humiliating Egypt’s former leader could backfire, and send the wrong message to other Mideast despots

In his 29-year rule of Egypt, Hosni Mubarak accumulated much to answer for — corruption, torture, oppression and little to show in the way of progress for the average Egyptians.

LAST WEEK in a Cairo courtroom, his trial began on the first of the charges, a curious pairing of ordering the police to deliberately gun down peaceful protesters with his sons being part of a crooked land deal. The murder charges — there are more to come — could net him the death penalty.

But the circumstances of the trial are dispiriting and offer little in the way of hope that Egypt’s next government will be better than the last.

Mubarak is 83 and believed to be seriously ill with cancer. The former president, his hospital bed, two sons and fellow defendants are penned up in a specially constructed steel bar and wire-mesh cage in the courtroom.

It is said that these cages are a regular fixture in trials in this part of the world. They shouldn’t be. The fact that the Russian courts use them should be reason enough to dispense with the practice.

COURT OFFICIALS cite security concerns but the ailing Mubarak, with perhaps the most recognizable face in Egypt, is hardly a flight risk. The sole purpose of the cage, it seems, is humiliation. And his prosecutors wanted the Egyptian public to see him in those circumstances in his first public appearance since a TV broadcast in February when he was still in power.

The Associated Press cites another reason for according Mubarak the dignified treatment and legal protections of a normal courtroom. Humiliating Mubarak sends a message to other dictators fighting to hang on in Libya, Syria and Lebanon: “Don’t lose.”

Ensuring that Mubarak and his cronies get a fair and humane trial is an important step toward restoring the rule of law in Egypt. Exhibiting Mubarak like an aging animal is hardly a promising start in that direction.

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