Egypt Court Absolves Mubarak of Murder, Corruption Charges
Local Editor
An Egyptian court dismissed Saturday a murder charge against ousted president Hosni Mubarak over the deaths of protesters during a 2011 uprising that ended the former strongman's decades-long rule.
The court also acquitted Mubarak and a former oil minister of corruption charges related to gas exports to the Zionist entity, but the former dictator will remain in prison because he is serving a three-year sentence in a separate corruption case.
Judge Mahmoud Kamel al-Rashidi said that seven of Mubarak's commanders including the feared former interior minister Habib al-Adly, were found "innocent" of the demonstrator deaths in 2011
About 800 people were killed during the 18-day uprising that unseated Mubarak, in which protesters clashed with police across the country and torched police stations. Mubarak was accused of having ordered the killing of protesters.
The ruling came after a dramatic retrial in which the former president defended his 30-year rule.
An appeals court overturned an initial life sentence for Mubarak in 2012 on a technicality.
His lawyer Farid al-Deeb claimed that Saturday's verdict was "a good ruling that proved the integrity of Mubarak's era."
Mubarak, who attended the trial hearings wearing his trademark shades, told the retrial in August that he was nearing the end of his life "with a good conscience".
"The Hosni Mubarak before you would never have ordered the killings of protesters," he said.
Mubarak's former interior minister Adly accused the Muslim Brotherhood and Palestinian militants of attacking protesters during the 2011 uprising to malign the police.
During the retrial which opened in May 2013, most witnesses - senior military and police officers under Mubarak - have given testimony seen as favorable to the former leader.
Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team
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