By Arnaud de Borchgrave

The new Egypt presents a frightening picture, according to a letter from Hosni Mubarak’s two sons, Gamal and Alaa. In a letter hand-carried out of prison in Egypt to Dr. Omar Zawawi, Oman’s most prominent businessman and a close adviser to Oman’s Sultan Qaboos, the Mubarak brothers wrote, “We have been through rounds of politically motivated investigations that resemble more of a witch hunt directed at our family at large.

“Egypt is passing through a critical phase in its modern history,” the Mubaraks wrote. “The announced vision and policies aim to respond to demands for more freedom, human rights and dignity for all. [But] what we have witnessed over the past few months is anything but those noble objectives.

“The media are being manipulated, the investigations of us and others corrupted, the charges leveled against us are manufactured and the allegedly accused dare not speak out or even have their supporters or lawyers speak out in their defense.”

The Mubarak brothers continued, “For the past three months, we have been subjected to an organized media campaign, led by state media outlets, to leak out false details about our investigations, continue relentlessly to slander our reputation, spread lies about fabricated charges against us, without allowing us any space whatsoever to respond.

“They have even launched a slandering campaign against any lawyer that would come forward to join our defense team,” the brothers said.

“To tamper with the judicial process to appease the mobs is the untold story that the outside world doesn’t know of Egypt over the past few months,” they said. “Demonstrations and mobs in the street have forced the authorities to first issue orders banning us from traveling. Manufactured state media hype escalated the mobs’ demands for our detention, and the [military] authorities responded.

“Finally and ahead of a planned demonstration calling for our trial, the authorities abruptly rushed an investigation, manufactured charges against us and in less than 72 hours referred us to court, and then announced our first court appearance for August 3. This is the mother of all appeasements by the authorities. Hosni Mubarak and his two sons will stand in court together on fabricated and totally outrageous charges.”

One of the charges against ex-President Hosni Mubarak, now in a prison hospital where he is gravely ill with cancer, “carries the death penalty,” his sons wrote.

Mr. Mubarak is accused of ordering the killing of protesters. “Who in his right mind could believe that Hosni Mubarak with his history of fighting for the dignity of his people … would even contemplate committing such a crime. In fact, he decided to step down to prevent violence from escalating. The evidence put together for his case is a farce,” the brothers said.

Such a trial, they said, is what Mr. Mubarak’s “staunch opponents, the Muslim Brotherhood, wanted all along.”

“More serious,” they said, “is that such a trial has little chance of being fair. … A senior Cabinet member, a former attorney general during our father’s time, a politician, minister of Justice in the ‘new Egypt’ announced a verdict eight weeks ago before even the supposedly independent attorney general’s office completes or even seriously starts [an] investigation. And the shocking side to all is that not a single voice of criticism about such flagrant manipulation of the justice system was heard, neither from within the government, nor from the orchestrated state media.

“No one dares to speak out of the carefully designed script.”

The Muslim Brotherhood, the Mubarak brothers wrote, have “captured the moment with a weak mob-appeasing government, lack of leadership, and a state media … orchestrated to attack and slander Mubarak. … We have witnessed firsthand in my jail, ex-Cabinet ministers who have already been sentenced on outrageous charges. The authorities want convictions of ex-officials to continue to appease the mobs, and the courts have been answering their calls.

“The outside world has to start understanding the reality of what is going on in Egypt,” they wrote. “Hosni Mubarak and his family have to pay the ultimate price.”

The brothers urged Dr. Zawawi “to use your esteemed global standing to shed light on what is going on, this is not the ‘new Egypt’ the West aspires to, nor the one we hope for our country.”

Arnaud de Borchgrave is editor-at-large of The Washington Times and United Press International.