Hosni Mubarak Release Ordered By Court

The ousted Egyptian president could be released on Thursday after a court accepted his appeal and ordered a retrial.

 

An Egyptian court has ordered the release of former president Hosni Mubarak, according to security sources.

 

The 85-year-old is being retried on charges of ordering the killing of protesters during the 2011 uprising that led to his downfall.

 

However, he has already served out the maximum amount of pretrial detention permitted in that case.

 

Mubarak was sentenced to life in prison last year for failing to prevent the killing of demonstrators. But a court accepted his appeal earlier this year and ordered a retrial.

 

A lawyer told Reuters he could be freed on Thursday.

 

Leaving the Cairo prison where the court convened, Fareed El-Deeb said: "The court decided to release him." Asked when, he said: "Maybe tomorrow."

 

Egypt's prosecutor will not appeal against the court ruling.

 

"The decision to release Mubarak issued today ... is final and the prosecution cannot appeal against it," Judge Ahmed el-Bahrawi said.

 

The ailing former president probably has no political future. But many Egyptians would see his release as the rehabilitation of an old order that endured through six decades of military-backed rule - and even a reversal of the pro-democracy revolt that toppled him.

 

At least 900 people, including 100 soldiers and police, have been killed in a crackdown on Mohamed Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood in the past week, making it Egypt's bloodiest civil episode in decades.

 

-Sky News