Egypt's Mubarak free, acquitted after years-long detention
By MAGGIE MICHAEL, Associated Press
Mar 24, 2017 9:38 AM CDT
FILE - In this Saturday, April 13, 2013 file photo, former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak waves to his supporters from behind bars as he attends a hearing in his retrial on appeal in Cairo, Egypt. Mubarak returned home free on Friday, March 24, 2017 following his release from custody after legal...   (Associated Press)

CAIRO (AP) — Ousted Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak was freed from custody Friday morning after six years of legal proceedings and wrangling that frustrated activists who had hoped he would face justice for the deaths of hundreds defying his rule.

The ailing, 88-year-old Mubarak left the Armed Forces Hospital in Cairo's southern suburb of Maadi and went to his home in the upscale Heliopolis district under heavy security, according to an Egyptian security official. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.

His release marked a new chapter for the former autocrat whose people rose up against him in 2011 and demanded an end to his 30 years in power marked by corruption, economic inequity and reliance on a much-feared security apparatus.

It also underscored the failed aspirations of the Arab Spring movement that swept the region. Six years later, mass uprisings in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Yemen, Bahrain, and Syria have led to civil war, failed states or a return to heavy-handed rule.

Mubarak's lawyer, Farid el-Deeb, told the Al-Masry al-Youm daily that the former president returned home with his sons, Alaa and Gamal, and the entire family, including Mubarak's wife, Suzanne, celebrated his return by having breakfast together.

On March 2, Egypt's top appeals court acquitted Mubarak of charges that he ordered the killing of protesters during the 2011 uprising.

A criminal court had ruled in May 2015 that Mubarak serve three years and fined him millions of Egyptian pounds following a conviction for embezzling funds earmarked for the maintenance and renovation of presidential palaces. The ruling was upheld by another court last year, and Mubarak's release Friday was for time served.

Prosecutors on Thursday reopened another corruption case linked to allegations that Mubarak and his family received gifts worth $1 million from the state-run Al-Ahram newspaper.

Mubarak, who assumed Egypt's highest office in 1981 following the assassination of Anwar Sadat, has spent virtually all the time since he was detained in hospitals due to poor health.

The order to release him was the latest in a series of rulings in recent years that acquitted about two dozen, Mubarak-era cabinet ministers, top police officers and aides charged with graft or in connection with the killing of some 900 protesters during the uprising.

Some of those acquitted have made a comeback in public life, while others partially paid back fortunes amassed illegally.

Activists say Mubarak's acquittal in the deaths of the protesters confirmed long-held suspicions that he and scores of police who faced the same charges would never be brought to justice.

It also made clear to activists and human rights campaigners how their "revolution" effectively had been reversed by President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi. The general-turned-politician has restored the status quo in a country ruled in an authoritarian fashion by men of military background for most of the last six decades.

Powerful media figures loyal to el-Sissi have vilified the 2011 uprising as a conspiracy by foreign agents who pose a threat to national security. They contend that the fallen protesters were shot not by security forces but by the now-banned Islamist group, the Muslim Brotherhood.

The attacks began soon after el-Sissi led the 2013 ouster of the Brotherhood's Mohammed Morsi, Egypt's first freely elected president whose year in office proved divisive.

Mubarak's sons also were convicted in the same embezzlement case and sentenced to three years in prison. They still face insider trading charges, but both are free and have made a series of highly publicized appearances greeted enthusiastically by their father's hard-core supporters.

While disillusioned by Mubarak's acquittal and release, rights lawyers and activists are likely to see it as a peripheral development in an increasingly military-run state.

"The trials, appeals and retrials — followed by acquittals — were only meant to win time until the military took back power," said Ahmed Helmi, a rights lawyer in Cairo.

"There is a great deal of apathy now. The only reaction you can find on the streets is someone joking about Mubarak being back home," he added. "Mubarak's return home is just ... a tiny detail in the bigger picture."

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