Dismay after Mubarak cleared of killing in 2011 revolution

THE former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak has been acquitted of killing protesters during the 2011 uprising that swept him from power, bringing an end to a politically charged case that has lasted nearly six years.

The ruling by Egypt’s court of cassation is final, leaving no room for an appeal or a retrial of the 88-year-old former dictator who ruled over his country for three decades.

The decision was met with dismay from many of the young Egyptians who camped out in Cairo’s Tahrir Square six years ago to overthrow Mr Mubarak.

“We made a revolution to send the thieves to prison,” said one young man called Ahmed. “Instead, the thieves were acquitted and we were imprisoned.”

Around 800 people were killed by Egyptian security forces during the 2011 revolution. In August that year, the ousted Mr Mubarak first appeared in court to stand trial on charges of being complicit their deaths. He was convicted in June 2012 and sentenced to life in prison.

But six months later, his sentence was overturned and in 2014 the charges were dropped because of a legal technicality. Yesterday’s court ruling upheld that 2014 decision.

“The court has found the defendant innocent,” said Judge Ahmed Abdel Qawi.

Mr Mubarak has always staunchly maintained his innocence even as his health failed.

He was rolled into court on a mobile hospital bed and sat in a wheelchair during the all-day proceedings. But he found the strength to utter the words “it did not happen” when the judge initially read out the charges against him. Mr Mubarak has been living in a military hospital for several years and is expected to return there.

In the years that the legal proceedings have dragged on, Egypt’s political landscape has been repeatedly reshaped. When the first trial opened Egypt was being ruled by a military committee who eventually ceded power in 2012 to Mohammed Morsi, the Muslim Brotherhood leader who became Egypt’s first democratically elected president.

Mr Morsi was himself toppled by large protests and a military coup in 2013 and the country is now led by Abdel Fatah el-Sisi, a former general who served as Mr Mubarak’s director of military intelligence.