Mubarak interview never happened, claims lawyer

Former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s lawyer, Farid el-Deeb, has denied reports that the ousted leader spoke to a reporter from el-Watan newspaper. Sunday's edition of Egyptian daily carried extracts from an interview they claimed to have done with Mubarak. However, on Sunday evening, el-Deeb claimed that the interview had not taken place. "I talked to the president [Hosni Mubarak] and he confirmed he never spoke to the journalist," el-Deeb said in a press statement, adding that the newspaper had combined Mubarak's views from recent television interviews to run it as an exclusive. El-Deeb asked: "Why didn’t the journalist take pictures of himself with the former president?" In the interview published by el-Watan, Mubarak, currently on trial for killing protesters and corruption, supposedly said he was upset to see the effect of Egypt's failing economy on the country's poor.