CAIRO – Deposed Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak and his two sons were on Tuesday referred to a criminal court on suspicion of graft and ordering deadly fire against anti-government protesters, state media reported.

The official MENA news agency said the 83-year-old former strongman and his two sons Alaa and Gamal have been charged with “premeditated murder of some participants in the peaceful protests of the January 25 revolution”.
“The public prosecutor Abdel Maguid Mahmud has decided today to refer former president Hosni Mubarak and his two sons Alaa and Gamal and businessman Hussein Salem to a criminal court,” the news agency reported.
Al Jazeera's Ayman Mohyeldin, reporting from the Egyptian capital, Cairo, said there is a list of charges against the former president but the most severe charge includes the direct involvement in the killings of the protesters.
He said the charges include allegations that the former president gave the ok for senior officers of the police force as well as the former interior minister to use force in trying to suppress the protesters.
“It could very well lead to the prosecutor calling for the death penalty,” Al Jazeera's correspondent said.
“Whether or not that's going to happen is extremely premature as the case is still being formulated.
“But the general prosecutor now believes that there is enough evidence to implicate Mubarak and his two sons, as well as a fourth individual, Hussien Salam.”
The decision was announced ahead of another demonstration planned in Cairo's Tahrir Square, the heart of the uprising, on Friday. Activists have called for a big turnout to demand faster reforms and a public trial for Mubarak and others.
“Every time the youth threaten to go to Tahrir Square again with a huge number of protesters, I think they make some concessions,” Hassan Nafaa, a political scientist and long-time critic of Mubarak, told the Reuters news agency.
?Mubarak was toppled on February 11 after an 18-day-long mass uprising from protesters demanding an end to his 30-year rule.
He was detained on April 13, a day after being hospitalized in the Red Sea resort city of Sharm el-Sheikh.
Photo: The decision comes before another demonstration was planned at Tahrir Square to demand a trial for Mubarak. (EPA photo)