Cairo, Asharq Al-Awsat- The Egyptian Salafi preacher responsible for the sensational fatwa condoning the killing of potential presidential candidate Mohamed ElBaradei has surfaced again. This time however, Sheikh Mahmud Amir, has issues a fatwa rejecting the legal persecution of former President Hosni Mubarak, saying that Mubarak’s actions were authorized by Shariaa law.

Amir also issued a fatwa that it is inadmissible to assault the Israeli ambassador.

Sheikh Amir, who is the chairman of the Supporters of Muhammad’s Sunnah Group in Damanhur in Al-Buhayrah Governorate told Asharq Al-Awsat that all the accusations leveled at Mubarak are issues that Shariaa authorizes him to do, and that if he was right he would have two rewards, and if he was wrong he would have one reward; this is on the basis of the Hadith by the Prophet, God’s prayer and peace be upon him: “If the ruler improvised, and was right, then he would have two rewards, and if he was wrong, then he would have one reward.”

Sheikh Amir says that the accusations on whose basis Mubarak is put on trial have been proved by evidence that they were in the public interest. Sheikh Amir adds: “On the basis of Shariaa, Mubarak should not be put on trial for exporting gas to Israel, because there is a covenant between Egypt and Israel.” He says: “There is no Shariaa evidence on the prohibition of buy from, and selling to the Jews and Christians; in fact, the opposite is correct;” moreover, exporting gas is one of the issues that come under the power of Mubarak as a ruler.

Amir explains that anyone who considers Mubarak’s negotiations with Israel concerning the export of gas as treason is “ignorant,” and “the proof is that the Prophet, God’s prayer and peace be upon him, negotiated with the polytheists over giving them money for nothing, and he died with his shield mortgaged with a Jew. Moreover, accusing Mubarak of killing the demonstrators during the 25 January revolution is a suspicious issue on intellectual and Shariaa grounds. On intellectual grounds, it is impossible that there was a decision by Mubarak to kill the demonstrators, otherwise there would have been 850,000 killed rather than 850 in Al-Tahrir Square; as for the Shariaa grounds, those demonstrators have dissented against the Mubarak (the ruler), which is against Shariaa, because Islam does not permit dissent against the ruler.”

Amir wonders: “Why do we hold Mubarak to account for doubtful and not confirmed issues? Moreover, it is inadmissible for the judge appointed by Mubarak to try him.” Amir considers that putting Mubarak on trial after he stepped down from power is “unethical.”

Amir is surprised by the keenness of the Egyptian people to put Mubarak on trial and kill him, while Mubarak had stepped down voluntarily and vanquished the Jews in 6 October 1973 war, and at the same time they had not held former President Jamal Abdul-Nasser to account, as he was the one who brought the Jews into Sinai, and they even raised his photographs in Al-Tahrir Square. Amir considers this not to be the logic of civilized people.

With regard to the way the Egyptians look at him after he called for not putting Mubarak on trial, Amir says that the media in Egypt has deceived the Egyptians, and he calls for debates with “senior journalists, Sheikhs, and politicians in order to prove that they are the liars and deceivers, but no one responded to my call; on the contrary the reply to my proofs of the innocence of Mubarak has been to accuse me of being an agent of the regime, and of the dissolved state security organizations.”

With regard to the demonstrations calling for expelling the Israeli ambassador from Egypt, Amir describes those who stage the demonstrations as “fools.” He considers the demonstrations calling for expelling the ambassador, and attacking the embassy as practices that have nothing to do with political or Shariaa jurisprudence. Amir points out: There is a covenant between us and the Jews, and hence how can we expel the ambassador, or attack hi m or the embassy? Amir stresses that the presence of the Israeli ambassador in Egypt ought to be respected, the same as the Prophet used to respect his covenants.