An Egyptian court has dropped the case filed against former President Hosni Mubarak over the killing of about 239 protesters in the 2011 revolt that ended his 30-year rule. Reuters was there:
Mubarak, 86, was sentenced to life in prison in 2012 for conspiring to murder the demonstrators, sowing chaos and creating a security vacuum during the 18-day revolt, but an appeals court ordered a retrial.
His supporters erupted into celebration when the verdicts of that retrial – which also cleared Mubarak’s former interior minister Habib al-Adly and six aides – were read out. The defendants had denied the charges.
Those supporters outside court, carrying pictures of the ex-air force officer who loomed so large over the most populous Arab nation for three decades, far outnumbered families of protesters who died in the Tahrir Square revolt.
The judge said criminal charges should never have been brought against Mubarak in the case. The decision can be appealed, however, and the former leader was not freed as he is serving a three-year jail term in a separate embezzlement case.
