It is not clear whether Mubarak, 83, who is detained in a Red Sea resort
hospital, will attend the trial in a Cairo suburb, but the once influential
brothers will appear, dressed in white uniforms, to answer to the charges.
They are accused of corruption, and face years in jail if convicted.
It is a spectacular fall from grace that neither Gamal, 47, nor his elder
brother Alaa, could ever have imagined.
They were raised in luxury in Cairo's upscale Heliopolis district. Gamal
studied at the American University of Cairo and was a banker in London until
1995, when he returned to Egypt
following an attempt on his father's life.
Gamal had risen in the party ranks over the past decade, heading a powerful
committee he created that oversaw liberal economic reforms and surrounding
himself with widely reviled businessmen.
Just a few months before the revolt that ousted Mubarak in February, Gamal had
helped oversee a parliamentary election campaign that reduced the opposition
to a rump while strengthening the ruling National Democratic Party.
The election, which critics said was rigged, was seen as a gambit in Gamal's
bid to succeed his father, who ruled Egypt for three decades.
The widespread belief that Gamal was eyeing the presidency was one of the
grievances that pushed Egyptians out to protest for 18 days, forcing his
father to resign.
Throughout the crisis, Gamal was believed to have egged his father on,
advising him to face down the protests and refuse to quit.
His brother Alaa led a quieter life, but he too was said to have taken
advantage of his father's position to amass great wealth through corrupt
business dealings.
Alaa was the more popular of the two, and he was reported to have publicly
lashed out at his brother during a gathering for losing his father the
presidency.
The brothers are now detained in Cairo's Tora prison, along with a number of
former regime officials. They reportedly stay to themselves and rarely leave
their cells.
They receive visits from their wives, but they have not seen their mother, the
half-Welsh Suzanne, who was said to have stoked Gamal's presidential
aspirations and who also faces corruption charges.
Gamal has a young daughter by his wife Khadija, and Alaa had two children by
Haidi Rassekh.
One of Alaa's sons, Mohammed, died in 2009 at the age of 12. The boy's death
reportedly so shocked the president that he could not receive visiting heads
of state for a while.
