UPDATE – Egypt's Mubarak, Morsi attend jailbreak trial session

*ADDS MUBARAK TESTIMONY; CHANGES HEADLINE</p> <p>CAIRO (AA) – Former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak appeared in court Wednesday to testify in the retrial of his successor, Mohamed Morsi, who faces charges of participating in a mass jailbreak in 2011. </p> <p>Footage aired by local media showed a gray-haired Mubarak walking with crutches into the courtroom accompanied by his two sons. </p> <p>Mubarak had initially refused to testify on grounds that his testimony “could harm national security”.</p> <p>Regarding alleged border breaches that occurred shortly before Egypt’s popular uprising on Jan. 25, 2011, Mubarak said: “Omar Suleiman [then head of Egypt’s intelligence service] informed me of the breach, saying an 800-strong force had crossed the border.”</p> <p>“They infiltrated the border from Gaza with the help of people in [Egypt’s] North Sinai province,” he added, claiming the latter had cooperated with Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood “with the aim of sowing chaos in Egypt”. </p> <p>The infiltrators, the former president alleged, “entered several prisons in the area, letting inmates affiliated with Hezbollah, Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood go free”. </p> <p>At one point, he added, “they climbed to the top of high buildings and began shooting”.</p> <p>During his testimony, Mubarak pled ignorance in regards to a reported plan — allegedly cooked up by the Brotherhood, Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah and the U.S. — to drag Egypt into chaos.</p> <p>He declined, however, to answer questions about government facilities that had been destroyed at the time and deaths that allegedly resulted in connection with these acts, according to an Anadolu Agency correspondent.</p> <p>Morsi, for his part, appeared in a cage at the back of the courtroom, from which he appeared to be closely following Mubarak’s testimony.</p> <p>It was the first time Mubarak and Morsi faced one another since the former stepped down in 2011 — after three decades in power — following 18 days of countrywide demonstrations. </p> <p>Morsi was elected president in 2012, one year after Mubarak stepped down. </p> <p>After a single year in power, however, he was himself ousted in a military coup and slapped with a host of criminal charges, which he and his supporters insist are politically motivated. </p> <p>Following Morsi’s ouster in mid-2013, the Egyptian authorities launched a relentless crackdown on political dissent, killing hundreds of Morsi’s supporters and throwing thousands behind bars for alleged “violence”.