Mubarak released after years spent in detention
Ex-Egyptian leader goes home, but legal woes not over
CAIRO — Six years after roaring crowds ousted him at the peak of the Arab Spring, former President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt was freed early Friday from the Cairo hospital where he had been detained, capping a long and largely fruitless effort to hold him accountable for human rights abuses and endemic corruption during his three decades of rule.
Mubarak, 88, was taken under armed escort from the Maadi Military Hospital in southern Cairo, where he had been living under guard in a room with a view of the Nile, to his mansion in the upmarket suburb of Heliopolis.
The release begins a third act for Mubarak, a once unassailable Arab ruler and U.S. ally who came to power in 1981 after the assassination of President Anwar Sadat during a military parade. Thirty years later, Mubarak’s own rule ended abruptly as multitudes thronged Tahrir Square for 18 days in the heady, hopeful early months of the Arab Spring.
He was accused of having conspired with police to kill 239 protesters in Tahrir Square; having siphoned tens of millions of dollars from state coffers; and of having cut off the country’s internet access during the 2011 uprising, among other crimes.
After a 2012 conviction for the deaths of protesters, Mubarak was sentenced to life in prison. But an appeals court overturned that verdict and ordered a retrial, and he was exonerated. He also skirted several corruption accusations.
But one charge stuck: that Mubarak and his sons had embezzled millions of dollars in state money.
In May 2015, a court sentenced Mubarak and his sons to three years in prison each and ordered them to pay $20 million in restitution and fines. But they were allowed to count time served.
Mubarak’s legal woes are not entirely over. On Thursday, a Cairo court created the basis for prosecutors to reopen a corruption investigation into gifts that Mubarak received from a state-owned newspaper while in power.