Mubarak faces retrial
An Egyptian court has granted Hosni Mubarak’s appeal of his life sentence, ordering a retrial of the ousted president.
Mubarak was convicted and sentenced to life in June for failing to prevent the killing of some 900 protesters during the 2011 uprising that ended his 29-year rule.
Today’s verdict, read out by judge Ahmed Ali Abdel-Rahman during a brief hearing in Cairo, also granted the appeal of Mubarak’s security chief Habib el-Adly, who is also serving a life sentence after his conviction on the same charges. He too will be retried.
No date has been set for the start of their retrial.
The ruling came one day after a prosecutor placed a new detention order on Mubarak over gifts worth millions of Egyptian pounds he and other regime officials allegedly received from Egypt’s top newspaper as a show of loyalty while he was in power.
The public funds prosecutor ordered Mubarak to be held for 15 days pending the completion of the investigation.
Mubarak, 84, was moved to a Cairo military hospital last month after slipping inside a prison bathroom and injuring himself.
Mubarak’s two sons, one-time heir apparent Gamal and businessman Alaa, are in prison while on trial for alleged insider trading and using their influence to buy state land at a fraction of its market price. The two were acquitted of corruption charges in the same case as Mubarak, but judge Abdel-Rahman today said the court has granted the prosecution’s appeal against their not-guilty verdict.
