CAIRO — Ousted President Hosni Mubarak has denied any responsibility for his security forces killing nearly 900 protesters during Egypt's uprising, according to a transcript of his interrogation published on Thursday.
Asked to explain the killings, Mubarak dismissed the lethal crackdown by saying:
"Our people and our security are like that."
Mubarak, 83, is in custody in an Egyptian hospital. He faces charges of ordering the use of deadly force against demonstrators during the 18-day revolt that swept him from power in February. He has rarely been heard from since and the transcript offers the public his most extensive comments yet about the final days of his three-decade rule.
Judicial officials confirmed to The Associated Press that the transcript is authentic. They spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject. Mubarak's chief defense lawyer, Farid el-Deeb, told the AP that part of what was published had been fabricated, but declined to elaborate.
The transcript was leaked in the midst of a new wave of protests across the country, one of them a week-old sit-in in Cairo's Tahrir Square, where protesters camped night and day for almost the entire uprising.
Justice for the uprising's victims is among the hottest issues in Egypt's bumpy transition to democracy. And the protesters camping out in Tahrir are demanding that those behind the killings be swiftly tried.
Mubarak comes across in the transcript as aloof and totally out of touch with the fury his regime created.
Asked to explain why he thought protesters were killed and wounded, he said: "I cannot say exactly."