Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, Mubarak's defense minister for 20 years and now leader of the army council, and others will give their testimony behind closed doors.

The judge said the court that has convened four times since Aug. 3 would meet daily, accelerating the trial of Mubarak who is charged with conspiring to kill protesters and inciting some officers to use live ammunition.

Judge Ahmed Refaat stunned the court at the end of Wednesday's session by calling as witnesses Tantawi, Armed Forces Chief of Staff Sami Enan, Mubarak's former intelligence chief and briefly Vice President Omar Suleiman and Interior Minister Mansour El-Essawy. Tantawi will testify on Sept. 11.

"I don't want to hear a sound until I am done with reading the decisions," he told the court before making the announcement. There were gasps and whispers as he read each name.

"Now it's started," one stunned court police officer said in a hushed tone as the judge spoke.

Many opponents of Mubarak, who has attended each session lying on a stretcher after being hospitalized in April, have been frustrated by the pace and progress of the trial after about 850 people were killed in the uprising.

Refaat said the officials would testify behind closed doors due to national security and banned publication of testimonies.

Police witnesses called by the prosecution have suggested that neither Mubarak nor his former Interior Minister Habib El-Adly gave orders to shoot. Two witnesses said they were told to show "self-restraint."

"The meaning of what happened today is that Egypt has become a state where the law reigns. This is history in all terms of the word. For the judge to summon this high-level list of witnesses and in one week has never happened in any state in the world," said Khaled Abu Bakr, representing families' of victims.

The judge denied a request on Wednesday by the prosecution to charge one police witness with giving false testimony after they said he had changed an earlier account.

Prosecutors said that police officer Mohamed Abdel Hakim had initially told the prosecution during their probe that he was given 300 shotgun cartridges, but in court he denied this.

When Abdel Hakim left the court, where the session often became heated, one lawyer shouted after him: "You liar, you liar. You have been paid. This is the blood of your brother."