Egypt frees Mubarak after 6 years

Former president leaves detention in military hospital after acquittal by court

CAIRO // Hosni Mubarak, the former Egyptian autocrat toppled during the Arab Spring uprising in 2011, was freed yesterday from the military hospital where he spent much of the past six years in detention.

The release of Mr Mubarak, 88, who ruled Egypt for three decades, would have been unthinkable several years ago. But revolutionary fervour gave way to exhaustion and even nostalgia in the uprising’s chaotic aftermath. Mr Mubarak was cleared for release this month after a top court acquitted him of involvement in the deaths of protesters during the 2011 revolt that ousted him. About 850 people were killed in clashes with the police.

Mr Mubarak was sentenced to life in jail, but he appealed successfully for a retrial and was finally acquitted by Egypt’s highest appeal court on March 2. During his detention, Mr Mubarak remained defiant and denied wrongdoing. “When I heard the first verdict I laughed,” he said after his sentencing in 2012. “I did nothing wrong at all.”

Meanwhile, several key activists in the 2011 uprising are now serving long jail terms, and civil rights groups say hundreds of others have been forcibly disappeared. The anti- Mubarak revolt ushered in instability that drove away tourists and investors and hammered the economy.

His successor Mohamed Morsi, of the Muslim Brotherhood, was ousted by the military after only a year. A police crackdown followed in which hundreds of protesters calling for Mr Mubarak’s reinstatement were killed. The following year, Abdel Fattah El Sisi, the man who toppled Mr Morsi, was elected president.

Some Egyptians now believe they had more freedom under the Mubarak regime. “Mubarak’s time was a lot better in all aspects,” said Ahmed Mohammed, 29 who was among the thousands in Tahrir Square calling for Mr Mubarak’s removal.

The former president’s lawyer said Mr Mubarak returned home to a villa in Cairo’s Heliopolis district.

“Mubarak’s trial lasted six years and public opinion became bored of it,” said Mostafa Kamel Al Sayed, a professor of political science in Cairo. “Many now consider that Mubarak’s regime itself was better than the current regime when it comes to freedom of thought and organisation. There was a wider space for the opposing opinion whether in papers or on television.”